Health workers have protested outside the Melbourne headquarters of energy giant AGL, calling for the company to mitigate the climate and health effects of its power plants by exiting coal by 2030.
About 40 people, mainly doctors and nurses, yesterday took part in the protest which comes as coal-fired generators find themselves under increasing pressure to compete against cheap renewables.
Healthy Futures, a group of health professionals concerned about the environment, hopes the company will soon announce an early closure of the Loy Yang A power station in Victoria's Latrobe Valley.
"That's really why we felt this action was so timely, we thought that generating some attention around this issue now may help to bring that date forward even further," Healthy Futures member and Warragul GP Benjamin Lewis said.
In December, the Australian Energy Market Operator released its energy grid plan for the next 20 years, which forecast Victoria's remaining coal-fired power stations could all close by 2032.
The Loy Yang A power station and coal mine are not scheduled to close until 2048.
AGL also owns the Liddell in New South Wales and Torrens Island in South Australia.
Health workers back coal exit
During the protest, the group staged a "die-in" where they set up a mock medical ward complete with dying patients to highlight the effects of coal-fired power.
They also delivered an open letter signed by 25 health organisations and more than 600 healthcare workers calling for the company to exit coal.
"Healthcare workers generally are seeing an increased incidence of the health effects attributable to climate change," Dr Lewis said.
He also said air pollution from the Latrobe Valley's three coal-fired power stations had an impact on health locally.
"And that's why the World Health Organisations really made that recommendation to get companies like AGL to divest from fossil fuels and why are we really back in that approach."
The power stations emit chemicals such as carbon monoxide, oxides of nitrogen, sulphur dioxide and fine particulate matter, according to the Federal Government's National Pollution Index.
A changing company
AGL is in the process of separating into two companies -- AGL Australia, an energy retailer, and Accel Energy, which will hold the company's baseload electricity assets.
It will present its half-yearly results on February 10.
A company spokesperson said AGL respected Healthy Futures views and recognised it had a significant role to play in cutting emissions and was "committed to playing a leadership role".
"As part of the proposed demerger, AGL currently is setting separate climate commitments and targets for Accel Energy and AGL Australia, enabling each business to focus on their respective strategic opportunities and challenges presented by the accelerating energy transition," the spokesperson said.
"Work is underway and we will provide an update on progress related to the proposed demerger at our half-year results announcement in February."
The spokesperson did not say whether the company planned to bring forward the closure of Loy Yang A.
Renewables cheaper
The director of Victoria University's Victoria Energy Policy Centre, Professor Bruce Mountain, said he would not be surprised if AGL used the restructure to bring forward the closure of AGL.
Dr Mountain said the company had to strike a difficult balance between meeting the demand of customers who wanted more renewables and not jeopardising its coal assets.
"New wind and solar generation is able to produce electricity, typically cheaper than existing coal-fired generation and that's really the metric that often matters," he said.
But Grattan Institute energy program director Tony Wood said whatever happened, there would be no repeat of the sudden closure of the Hazelwood power station in 2017, which closed with six months' notice -- sending wholesale power prices rising and resulted in 500 job losses.
"All the coal-fired power stations in Victoria ... have an obligation to provide five years' notice before closure and that's mainly to avoid what happened with the very short notice arrangements that happened with Hazelwood," Mr Wood said.
