The NSW Environment Protection Authority will begin implementing improvements to the operation of the state's four coal-fired power stations following its recent community consultation and review of environment protection licences.
The statutory five-yearly review, which received over 100 submissions, is the first step to ensure the licences reflect best practice and enables the community to provide feedback.
Areas of focus include reviewing air emissions limits for some metals, review the frequency of air and water monitoring, review and improvement of monitoring and public access to information and increasing community and stakeholder engagement by power stations.
The operation of Vales Point power station remains a particular focus for community and environment groups around Lake Macquarie.
The EPA granted Delta Electricity an exemption from pollution limits until October 2024.
The exemption required Delta to produce two reports on nitrogen oxides and sulphur dioxide emissions. Among other things, they explore the feasibility of installing best-practice pollution reduction technologies at the power station.
The NSW Nature Conservation Council obtained the reports last week. They show it is feasible for the plant to remove 90 per cent of its toxic nitrogen oxide emissions.
The council's policy and advocacy director Brad Smith said the council would lobby the government to require the power station's owner Delta Electricity to upgrade its pollution controls.
"We are calling on the EPA to require NOx emission control upgrades at Vales Point, and Premier Chris Minns to take a stand and protect the community," he said.
"The documents show by installing basic pollution controls similar to those required in the European Union, China and the United States, Vales Point would drastically reduce Lake Macquarie residents' exposure to unhealthy air.
"Vales Point should be cleaned up or shut down."
EPA executive director of regulatory operations Jason Gordon said the agency had a comprehensive and robust framework for regulating power stations and was committed to ensuring they operate with environmental responsibility.
"We received some incredibly informative and thoughtful feedback throughout the consultation period, which has given us a deeper understanding of the community's priorities for our ongoing regulation of power stations," Mr Gordon said.
"Ensuring we have strong air and water pollution controls, best practice management of coal ash, and more access for the community to monitoring data will be among our key areas of focus for our ongoing conversations with the power station operators."
EPA chief executive Tony Chappel recently told the Newcastle Herald that the uptake of renewables in the grid was changing the how traditional coal-fired plants operated. This, in turn, was impacting their licencing conditions.
"The coal plants that are still in the system are ramping up and down much more quickly. There's a learning curve that industry needs to go on to adjust their operations and manage their emissions to meet the higher standards," he said.
"We required Vales Point Power Station to do some work around adjusting how they operate to make sure they comply with the new standards.
"It's the sort of adjustment that we expect the power sector to do as a whole to do as it moves into a new phase where they're operating more flexibly with different parameters than what coal stations have operated under."
Along with licence variations to address pollution concerns and improve community engagement, the EPA will continue to support the power stations to prepare, implement and report on climate change mitigation and adaptation plans as part of the EPA's Climate Change Action Plan 2023-26.
