ah, makes sense
not quite as simple as that... but 90% of my work is infrastructure upgrade which is a matter of skilled workers, money and time. but increasing generator capacity..., that's a different story all together. (I had to beat them to death with their own shoes).
lots if wind farms have been popping up last few years, but its unreliable and not particularly effect for running more than small towns. the big shit runs into massive issues with greenies obviously, plus the quality of coal in Victoria isn't very good. design, construct and build time for a nuclear power station would be around 12 years not including fighting off protesters plus finding a company interested in running the joint. a lot can happen in 12 years, including efficient solar panels and an effective way to store solar energy overnight..
Hydrostations are in the same boat. large environmental impact, irregular or too small an energy source and most of the large water sources in vic are already dammed or are landmarks/too valuable to people.
natural gas and diesel generators (like new port) are idle for most of the time because the costs of electricity isn't worth the running costs... unless the price goes high (like this week). and that's really the only line of defence for vic. demand spikes, price skyrockets and all these little generators start up and make enough money in summer to keep them going for another year.
also, the Bass link cable (DC supply from tassie) feeds vic most of the time because tassie has excessive amounts of power from all the hydro stations. and a lot of money is made selling it to vic.
Hazelwood and it's 6 generators (I think) power around 25% of the states demands. 1.8GW at full capacity I think. and greenies want it shut down. I think it's run out of good black coal, but not sure how much brown coal it has left. I'm sure it'll become redundant eventually. but at the moment there isn't cost effective, reliable or practicable alternatives. and we need it.
Tip Top Tip: Hazelwood burns most of the good coal at night so you can't see the black smoke from the chimneys, and burn the friendlier stuff during the day.