16 May 2025

Unlocking Hidden Value in Your Generation Assets: The ATEN Opportunity for Power Station Owners

For owners and operators of gas-fired power stations, the energy transition presents both challenges and opportunities. As the market evolves, an innovative technology enables generators to extract significantly more value from existing assets while positioning for future success.

 

The Generation Owner's Dilemma

 

As a power station owner in Western Australia, you face a complex set of challenges:

Market Evolution: The increasing penetration of renewables is changing dispatch patterns and placing pressure on traditional generation business models.

Emissions Reduction: The Safeguard Mechanism and broader climate policies require progressively lower emissions intensity from existing facilities.

Capacity Value: While the Reserve Capacity Mechanism provides essential revenue, there's uncertainty about future changes to capacity pricing and eligibility.

Fuel Costs: Rising gas prices affect operational economics, potentially squeezing margins on energy market dispatch.

Investor Pressure: Growing ESG expectations from investors, lenders, and shareholders demand demonstrable action on carbon reduction.

Capital Constraints: Limited capital availability means you must prioritise investments that deliver maximum return.

Navigating these challenges requires solutions that can enhance asset value while aligning with the direction of market evolution. This is where ATEN (Accretive Thermal Efficiency Node) technology presents a compelling opportunity.

 

The ATEN Opportunity: Transforming Your Generation Economics

ATEN technology captures waste heat from gas turbine exhaust—energy that would otherwise be vented to the atmosphere—and converts it to additional electricity without burning fuel. For power station owners, this creates a remarkable value proposition:

20-30% More Capacity: ATEN installations increase your station's output by 20-30% with zero additional fuel consumption. For a 150 MW plant, 30-45 MW of additional capacity.

Zero Incremental Fuel Cost: The additional generation requires no extra gas, creating a step-change improvement in your heat rate and dramatically lowering marginal cost.

15-30% Lower Emissions Intensity: By generating more electricity from the same fuel input, ATEN reduces carbon intensity by 15-30%, immediately improving your facility's emissions profile.

Carbon Credit Generation: Significant emissions reduction can generate carbon credits or offset requirements under the Safeguard Mechanism, creating an additional revenue stream and avoiding compliance costs.

Highly Competitive Returns: Analysis shows IRRs of 15-30% in base case scenarios, with potential to reach 45% under favourable conditions—far exceeding typical return thresholds.

Rapid Deployment: ATEN can be installed within 18 months from the close of a financial closure, allowing you to capture benefits and respond to market opportunities quickly.

Asset Life Extension: By improving economics, ATEN can extend the viable commercial life of your generation assets in an increasingly carbon-constrained world.

Let's examine how these benefits translate to real-world value for your power station.

 

Case Study: Financial Impact on a Typical WA Gas Plant

 

To illustrate the potential impact, let's examine a model case study based on parameters similar to Kemerton Power Station—a 310 MW OCGT facility with two gas turbines:

Before ATEN:

  • Installed capacity: 310 MW
  • Capacity factor: 30-40% (typical for peaking plant)
  • Heat rate: ~11,800 kJ/kWh (LHV)
  • Emissions intensity: ~0.6 tCO₂/MWh

 

Projected After ATEN Implementation:

  • Installed capacity: 390 MW (+80 MW)
  • Capacity factor: Same as base plant
  • Effective heat rate: ~9,400 kJ/kWh (LHV)
  • Emissions intensity: ~0.48 tCO₂/MWh (-20%)

 

Projected Financial Impacts:

  • Additional capacity credits: ~$20 million per year
  • Fuel savings: ~$35 million per year at $10.40/GJ delivered gas
  • Carbon compliance savings: ~$4.5 million per year at $30/tCO₂
  • Carbon credit potential: ~$6 million per year at AER carbon values
  • Project NPV: $335 million (base case)
  • Project NPV with carbon credits: $644 million (optimistic case with AER carbon pricing)
  • Project IRR: 29.5% (base case)
  • Project IRR with carbon credits: 45.4% (optimistic case)
  • Payback period: Under 4 years

These projected financial returns significantly exceed typical return thresholds for generation investments. Few other generation enhancement projects can deliver comparable economics.

 

Strategic Advantages in the Evolving Market

 

Beyond the direct financial benefits, ATEN provides strategic advantages that position your assets for ongoing success in the evolving market:

  1. Enhanced Merit Order Position By significantly improving heat rate, ATEN reduces your marginal cost of generation, moving your plant lower in the dispatch merit order. This means more frequent dispatch, higher capacity factor, and improved energy market revenue.
  2. Capacity Market Advantage As AEMO's 2024 WEM ESOO has identified, Western Australia faces a capacity shortfall of 391 MW by 2027-28, growing to 2,880 MW by 2033-34. By increasing your certified capacity, ATEN positions you to capture premium value in an increasingly tight capacity market.
  3. Safeguard Mechanism Compliance The federal Safeguard Mechanism requires large emitters to reduce emissions intensity by approximately 5% annually. ATEN delivers a 15-30% step reduction in intensity, potentially providing several years of compliance headroom without additional measures.
  4. Carbon Credit Generation Under various carbon crediting schemes, the emissions reduction from ATEN installations may qualify for Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) or other forms of carbon credits. With carbon prices projected to rise significantly under the Australian Energy Regulator's forecasts, this creates substantial additional value over the project lifetime.
  5. Competitive Differentiation In a market with multiple similar gas plants, ATEN provides competitive differentiation, allowing your assets to outperform peers on cost and emissions metrics—key factors for market performance and corporate ESG credentials.
  6. Optionality Preservation By improving the economics of your existing assets, ATEN buys time to evaluate longer-term options while generating strong returns today. This preserves optionality value in an uncertain transition environment.

 

Implementation: Practical Considerations for Plant Owners

 

Implementing ATEN at your facility would involve several key steps:

  1. Technical Assessment: A preliminary analysis of your specific turbine type, exhaust characteristics, and site configuration to determine precise capacity uplift potential.
  2. Financial Modelling: Detailed financial analysis incorporating your specific operating parameters, gas prices, capacity value, and carbon costs.
  3. Regulatory Engagement: Early discussions with AEMO regarding capacity certification of the additional output, ensuring full value capture.
  4. Integration Planning: Coordination with operational teams to minimise disruption during installation, with typical site works lasting 6-9 months.
  5. Project Execution: Implementation with experienced EPC partners through the NRW/Primero Group ATEN EPC Alliance.

Throughout this process, the ATEN team would work closely with your engineering, commercial, and operations personnel to ensure seamless integration with existing systems and maximise value capture.

 

Unique Attributes for Different Plant Types

 

ATEN technology can be applied to various gas turbine types, with benefits tailored to specific plant configurations:

For Open Cycle Gas Turbines (OCGTs):

  • Transforms traditional peaking plants into more efficient, lower-carbon assets
  • Particularly valuable for plants with higher capacity factors or growing dispatch expectations
  • Examples: Kemerton, Kwinana, Pinjar units

 

For Combined Cycle Gas Turbines (CCGTs):

  • Provides incremental efficiency improvements beyond existing heat recovery systems
  • Can be configured to complement existing steam cycles
  • Examples: NewGen Kwinana, Cockburn

 

For Remote/Mining Power Stations:

  • Reduces fuel consumption and emissions at remote sites where gas delivery is costly
  • Improves reliability by increasing available capacity without additional engines
  • Examples: Newman, Telfer power stations

Each application is tailored to the specific characteristics of your plant, maximizing performance improvement and financial returns.

 

Next Steps: Exploring the Opportunity for Your Facility

If you own or operate gas turbine assets in Western Australia, here's how to explore the ATEN opportunity:

  1. Initial Consultation: Arrange a confidential discussion with our technical and commercial team to explore potential applications at your facilities.
  2. Preliminary Assessment: Receive a no-cost initial assessment of potential capacity uplift, efficiency improvement, and indicative economics based on your specific asset configuration.
  3. Detailed Feasibility Study: If the preliminary assessment looks promising, progress to a detailed study incorporating site-specific factors, connection considerations, and precise financial modelling.
  4. Implementation Planning: Develop a comprehensive implementation plan including scheduling, integration approach, and operational transition.
  5. Project Execution: Execute the project with our experienced EPC partners, with ongoing support through commissioning and operation.

Our team brings deep experience in power generation, waste heat recovery, and ORC technology, ensuring a low-risk implementation path for your facility.

 

Conclusion: Act Now to Maximise Asset Value

 

The energy landscape is evolving rapidly, creating both challenges and opportunities for generation asset owners. Technologies like ATEN that can simultaneously improve economics, reduce emissions, and enhance strategic positioning are rare, particularly with the exceptional returns demonstrated in Western Australian applications.

With the need for dispatchable capacity growing as coal retires and demand increases, there's a time-limited opportunity to position your assets favourably in the emerging market. ATEN technology offers a proven path to extract significantly more value from your existing infrastructure while advancing sustainability goals.

The question isn't whether your generation assets will need to evolve in response to market changes—it's how to ensure they evolve in the most valuable way possible. ATEN technology provides an answer that makes both financial and strategic sense.