Full steam ahead for wholesale power competition Business The Australian

WHOLESALE electricity competition in Western Australia began formally yesterday with the commissioning of a 140-megawatt co-generation electricity plant at Alcoa's Pinjarra alumina refinery.
The plant is the first of four gas-fired units being built for Alinta at Alcoa refineries which will ultimately provide the gas distributor and retailer with 630MW of gas-fired electricity generation capacity in the state.
Co-generation is a process that produces two outputs - electricity and steam - from one input. The Pinjarra plant uses gas to produce 140MW of electricity and 240 tonnes of steam every hour. The electricity is supplied to Alinta's customers and the steam to the Pinjarra alumina refinery which is being upgraded to produce 4 million tonnes of alumina a year.
Western Australia is not connected to the National Electricity Grid and is the last state to open up its electricity market to competition.
Formally commissioning the plant about 90km south of Perth, Energy Minister Fran Logan said Alinta's current generation plans, which included a 90MW windfarm, would result in it supplying 18 per cent of Western Australia's southwest interconnected grid.
"The state Government's reform policy for electricity will deliver competitively priced and reliable power," Mr Logan said, adding it was already evident cheaper prices were available for wholesale customers.
Since the beginning of this month the one-time monopoly government-owned supplier, Western Power, has been split into four separate businesses, still operating as government business enterprises.
Alinta can supply in competition with the new Synergy business customers spending more than $8000 a year on electricity, but under government plans will ultimately be able to compete for retail customers. Alinta chief executive Bob Browning said Alinta was changing the way business was powered in Western Australia. "Through co-generation, Alinta is now able to provide cleaner and cheaper electricity to contestable customers," he said.
The Pinjarra plant is around 75 per cent thermally efficient compared with around 30 per cent for a coal-fired unit.
The plant is estimated to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by around 450,000 tonnes compared with a similar sized coal-fired plant, the equivalent of taking 120,000 cars off the road.
Alcoa of Australia managing director, Wayne Osborn, said the provision of steam from the co-generation plant to Alcoa's Pinjarra power station allowed the alumina refinery to operate in a more environmentally sustainable way.