Alinta Energy review

Alinta Energy has just under 450,000 customers throughout Australia. Here's what you need to know before deciding whether to switch to Alinta Energy.

CHOICE staff

Last updated: 09 February 2023

Alinta Energy services several states throughout Australia, including the Pilbara region of Western Australia.

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.

On this page:

Which states does Alinta Energy supply?
CHOICE Expert Rating on Alinta Energy
CHOICE Verdict on Alinta Energy
Alinta Energy's energy sources

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.

Contact details for Alinta Energy

alintaenergy.com.au

13 37 02

Which states does Alinta Energy supply?

CHOICE Expert Rating on Alinta Energy

CHOICE Verdict on Alinta Energy

Environmental

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.

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.

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.

March 2020 - Alinta Energy accused of putting customers' sensitive information at risk - Alinta Energy may be putting the personal information of its 1.1 million gas and electricity customers at risk.

November - Alinta Energy considers early closure of Victoria's Loy Yang B coal-fired power station - Energy giant Alinta is threatening an early closure of one of Australia's biggest coal-fired power stations, a move that is likely to put it on a collision course with the Federal Government.

October - Business lobby groups accused of 'undermining' climate change policy - Macquarie Group co-founder, and now chairman of Alinta Energy, Mark Johnson is a pillar of the establishment.

August - Stunning low costs inspire Alinta to ramp up renewables push, flag early coal exit - Australian utility Alinta Energy is ramping up its push into renewables, citing stunning low costs that will enable dispatchable wind and solar to compete with existing fossil fuel plant.

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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Stock images: Getty, unless otherwise stated.

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