Carbon Tax in Australia - The death of coal power generation in Australia

Been crunching the number of electricity generation using annual reports from the industry.gov.au website and they paint an interesting picture of how baseline coal generation was destroyed by the implementation of the Carbon Tax in 2012.


The original premise of the Carbon Tax would be that power generators would pay the tax or would improve their emissions through efficiencies etc.


However, it does appear that generators just closed the coal power plants rather than pay the tax. And its clear in the stats.


In 2011-2012, Black and Brown Coal Generation = 175362 GWh
In 2013-2014, Black and Brown Coal Generation = 151848 GWh, a drop of 13.4% in 2 years, and a loss of 23,513 GWh in coal power electricity generation.


Yet total power generation only dropped by 2.2% over that same period, or 5554 GWH.  So where did the other 17,959 GWhs go


Well it turns out 7,507 GWh got converted into Solar PV and Wind. Another 4000 went into Hydro. And the last 5500 went into natural Gas.


So as far as a reduction in baseload power, it was 13,000 GWH, or a 5% reduction. In 2 years.