Queensland’s energy minister has downplayed the risk of blackouts after a serious breakdown at the Callide coal-fired power station.

All four units at one of Queensland’s largest generators were offline after a series of incidents last week.

Callide is run by Queensland government-owned CS Energy. Its chief executive, Andrew Bills, says the “immediate focus is to work methodically and safely to restore these units to service as quickly as possible”.

Queensland energy minister, Mick de Brenni, has sought to address concerns about power supply shortages raised by the Mining and Energy Union (MEU) and others. 

“We have a strong publicly owned and resilient system,” he said. 

“We’re very confident moving forward that we’ll have adequate supply. There’s no need for an emergency response.”

The most recent shutdown of the problem-plagued Callide has been politicised. 

The conservative Institute of Public Affairs says “likely blackouts and load-shedding” have “exposed the consequences” of removing coal-fired power stations from the national energy market.

But the Queensland Conservation Council says coal is increasingly unreliable, and noted that renewable energy supplies were able to support the energy system when coal power stations were offline. 

Mr de Brenni has described the equipment at Callide as “old fashioned”, saying; “you wouldn’t build infrastructure like this going forward”.

“That’s why we’re investing in new renewables, wind and solar,” he said. 

“The energy system of the future is not about old-fashioned, hard-to-maintain equipment, it’s about new technology.”