The company claims that its goal is to deliver affordable sustainable energy to its customers, now and into the future. However, it does not have a position on fossil fuels and so far has made little effort to comply with Renewable Energy Target requirements.
It runs a large polluting coal-burning power station in Victoria and several gas power stations. It’s Australia’s seventh biggest climate polluter.
Established in 2016, Alinta Energy is a Chinese-owned company that operates in Western Australia, South Australia, Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria. It is a generator and retailer of energy, and offers electricity and gas to its customers.
The company owns and operates a number of power plants throughout Australia and in New Zealand. Looking towards the future, Alinta Energy is also investing in a number of renewable energy options, including solar, wind, battery and geothermal power and gaining the rights to a 500MW renewable energy project pipeline.
However, despite providing energy efficiency information on its website and producing a sustainability report, the company failed to comply with Renewable Energy Target requirements in 2016, and bought a $1 billion coal-fired power station in 2017.
Neither the organisation, nor its products, make any carbon neutral claims. It does not offer GreenPower or carbon offsets to its customers, despite advertising sustainability.
Alinta Energy claims to be working towards sustainability, but the company received a mere 3 stars out of 10 from The Green Electricity Guide due to its reliance on fossil fuels, a failure to comply with Renewable Energy Target requirements, and ownership of coal-fire power stations.
This is a slight decrease from the 4 out of 10 score it earned in 2019-20.
The company’s generated power comes predominately from gas-fired power stations, with a small amount (7%) of its power coming from renewable sources.
Alinta’s sustainability goal is to produce 1000MW of renewable energy by 2020. As of June 2018 it had totalled 543MW of renewable energy. The company currently has a 2726MW portfolio of power it has generated and bought.
It currently operates solar and wind farms, and is building a lithium-ion battery storage system.
Although it’s committed to halting fossil fuel expansion, Alinta plans to burn coal until 2047. This may change however (see Alinta in the news, 2021 below).
Customer service
7,263 (or 1.5%) of Alinta Energy’s customers lodged complaints against the company in 2021-22. This is a decrease on the complaints lodged in 2020-21.
57% of customer service calls made to the company are answered within 30 seconds.
The average time taken to answer a call made to Alinta Energy is 102 seconds.
5.9% of callers hang up before their call is answered.
Alinta Energy’s energy sources
Sources were not transparent during our 2020-21 survey. Figures listed below are from our 2019-20 survey.
Text-only accessible version
How does Alinta Energy generate power?
Coal: 28%
Gas: 65%
Renewables: 7%
How we get our results
Green Electricity score
This score is based on the company’s Green Electricity Guide star rating.
Complaints score
This score is based on the number of complaints measured as a proportion against the number of customers. The higher the percentage, the better. Data via the Australian Energy Regulator – updated annually.
Call response score
This score is based on how likely the retailer is to answer a call within 30 seconds. The higher the percentage, the better. Data via the Australian Energy Regulator – updated annually.
Alinta Energy in the news – 2021
October – Alinta concedes coal plant may shut 15 years early – Alinta Energy chief executive Jeff Dimery has conceded that the group’s coal-fired power station in Victoria may close as many as 15 years early in comments that support Energy Security Board chairman Kerry Schott’s expectation that coal power will be gone from Australia by the mid-2030s.
Alinta Energy in the news – 2020
November 2020 – Alinta Energy pays penalties for life support breaches – Alinta Energy has paid penalties totalling $200,000 after being issued with 10 infringement notices by the Australian Energy Regulator (AER) for putting vulnerable customers at risk.
May 2020 – Alinta yet to comply with FIRB sale conditions – Chinese-owned Alinta Energy has admitted it is still not fully compliant with conditions set in 2017 by the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) for its $4.1 billion takeover by Hong Kong-based Chow Tai Fook Enterprises.
July – Alinta signs up for huge solar and battery project in South Australia – A 200MW South Australia solar project that proposes to add “one of the largest” batteries in the Southern Hemisphere should be under construction by Christmas, after its developers snared a power purchase agreement with major utility, Alinta Energy.
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