Australia’s largest coal-fired power station, Eraring, to close in 2025, seven years early

Eraring Power Station at Lake Macquarie, which provides about a fifth of NSW’s electricity, will shut early due to changes in the energy market, its owner says. Photograph: Dean Lewins/AAP

The owner of Australia’s largest coal-fired power plant, the Eraring station on the shore of Lake Macquarie in New South Wales, has signalled it will close in 2025, seven years earlier than previously planned.

Origin Energy has given the Australian Energy Market Operator (Aemo) notice that will allow it to shut the 2,880MW black coal generator from August 2025. The company said its decision reflected “the rapidly changing conditions in the national electricity market, which are increasingly not well suited to traditional baseload power stations”.