Australia’s largest energy provider, AGL, has announced plans to split into two businesses, after intense pressure about its poor environmental and financial performance.
One of these, a ‘retail’ business will be what most people will see day-to-day. This brand will carry the renewable energy and community-friendly image AGL likes to cultivate.
But AGL’s demerger has a darker side. The company’s coal assets include some of the nation’s top climate polluters; Bayswater and Liddell in NSW’s Hunter Valley, and Loy Yang A in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley.
AGL plans to shunt these coal-burning power stations, which have seen it take the dubious title of Australia’s worst emitter of greenhouse gases, into a separate entity.
This doesn’t mean AGL…
