This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Angus Taylor has announced a taskforce to study the expected closure of the Liddell power station, leaving all options on the table including extending the life of or replacing the ageing coal plant at taxpayer expense.

The energy and “emissions reduction” minister who has presided over steadily increasing greenhouse gas emissions announced the review on Friday, a week after AGL revealed it would extend the life of Liddell from 2022 to April 2023.

Taylor told ABC News Breakfast the taskforce was made possible by the “very collaborative” approach of the New South Wales government.

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It would consider “everything from extension to replacement with like-for-like capacity”, arguing Australia did not want a repeat of power price rises and blackouts after the Hazelwood coal station in Victoria was decommissioned.

Asked if this could include taxpayer funding, Taylor at first said “no” before qualifying that “all options are on the table” and repeatedly refusing to rule it out.

“We’ve got to have all options on the table and I’m not going to front-run the conclusion of this taskforce,” he said. “What matters is we get a solution as quickly as possible. We’ve got four years to put the answer into place.”

Asked about whether renewables could provide baseload power, Taylor said “storage is expensive” and argued that “gas is very, very important in this mix”, calling on states including Victoria to lift moratoriums on exploration and fracking.

After the Morrison government was re-elected in May, the Coalition set up an inquiry into nuclear power after calls from several backbenchers to consider the controversial means to provide baseload power.

The former prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, weighed into the debate on Tuesday saying renewables combined with storage was “the cheapest form of new generation … cheaper than new coal and far cheaper than nuclear”.

Malcolm Turnbull (@TurnbullMalcolm) The cheapest form of new generation is renewables plus storage. Cheaper than new coal and far cheaper than nuclear. #qanda

Turnbull’s energy minister in the 45th parliament, Josh Frydenberg, failed to persuade AGL to keep Liddell open, leading to a chorus of outrage from Coalition MPs including Craig Kelly who called for options including nationalising the plant and the government building coal-fired power plants.

The coal baron Trevor St Baker has signalled an interest in redeveloping Liddell but claims he has not sought taxpayer support for the idea.

In March Taylor confirmed the Morrison government was continuing to assess new coal power projects as part of its underwriting scheme to fund new power generation despite pushback from moderate Liberals.

Last week the NSW energy and environment minister, Matt Kean, said he was “pleased to see AGL doing the right thing by the people of NSW by delaying the closure” of the plant.

Kean said he was focused on long-term solutions to introduce new electricity supply into the market and called on companies to “deliver more dispatchable generation that drives down prices and ensures reliability into the future”.