What replaces the closing Latrobe Valley coal plants?

Yallourn, Loy Yang A and Loy Yang B are all scheduled to retire over the next two decades — taking around 5 GW of generation and thousands of jobs out of the Valley. The precinct rebuilds Latrobe's industrial base — 4 GW of grid-scale batteries (sited on the existing coal-plant connection points), transmission gear manufacturing and 500 MW green ammonia — on the same workforce.

Why locate transmission gear manufacturing here?

Australia is in the middle of the largest transmission build-out in its history — Rewiring the Nation requires roughly 10,000 km of new high-voltage transmission to support the renewable energy zones. Latrobe Valley has the existing electrical-industrial workforce (switchgear, HV assembly, busbar fabrication) and the local transmission corporate footprint. The precinct's transmission manufacturing line supplies the national build.

What is grid firming?

As coal exits and renewables enter, the grid needs storage and balancing to maintain reliability through wind and solar variability. Grid-firming batteries discharge during peak demand and store during oversupply, smoothing the grid's daily and seasonal cycles. Latrobe's 4 GW of grid-scale storage is sized to firm the eastern seaboard renewable rollout for the next decade.

Growing Australia

Growing Australia is a fully-costed $190.1B sovereign industry plan to reduce cost-of-living pressure by rebuilding domestic capability in energy, manufacturing, cyber, food and regional partnerships.

The platform contains 48 investments across 26 Growth Precincts, with full costing assumptions and primary-source citations.

Costing model
Citations and sources
Powering Australia
Making It Here
Cyber Australia
Feeding Australia
Our Neighbourhood