Australia’s electricity market will need supply from the massive Snowy Hydro Project pumped hydropower storage project to help replace capacity at three of the country’s coal-fired power stations due to close by 2028.
The Snowy 2.0 project, built by Italian company Webuild SpA, will add 2,000 megawatts (MW) of capacity, by pumping water upstream into a dam when power is cheap and releasing the water downstream to produce energy when prices are high.
The aim is to support the grid when solar and wind power supplies are low, as Australia’s electricity supply is increasingly dependent on intermittent solar and wind power.
The new Labor government wants 82% of the market’s electricity on the east coast to come from renewable sources by 2030, up from 30% now.
Snowy 2.0 was proposed in 2017 by the then Conservative government. To help accelerate the project, the federal government took over full ownership of Snowy Hydro for A$6.2 billion in 2018.
The government had initially hoped it would be built by 2021. That chance was later pushed back to 2026.
According to the Australian Financial Review, the new delay is due to a series of problems with contractors and construction, which took the new Labor government by surprise.
Energy minister Chris Bowen, the industry minister and Snowy Hydro did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The Milan-based Webuild spokesperson was not immediately available outside working hours.
($1 = 1.4081 Australian dollars)