The world’s largest coal port has announced it will now be powered entirely by renewable energy.
The announcement from Port of Newcastle comes as coal power generation in Australia’s national electricity market fell to its lowest level in the final three months of 2021.
Though the port continues to export an average of 165Mt of coal a year, the move is part of a plan to decarbonize the business by 2040, and to increase the non-coal portion of its business so that coal only makes up half its revenue by 2030.
It has signed a deal with Iberdrola, which operates the Bodangora windfarm near Dubbo in inland New South Wales, for a retail power purchase agreement that provides the port with large scale generation certificates linked to the windfarm.
Chief executive officer Craig Carmody said the Port of Newcastle’s title as the largest coal port in the world “isn’t as wonderful as it used to be” and that change was necessary to avoid what happened in Newcastle and the steel industry closed.
