Clover Moore gas plan hot air Lord Mayor Clover Moore / Pic: Phil Blatch Source: The Daily Telegraph SYDNEY Lord Mayor Clover Moore has abandoned plans to build a clean, green power plant network to take Sydney off the coal-fired grid at an estimated cost of $5 billion. Despite writing in February for The Daily Telegraph that the project posed no financial risk, the council yesterday pulled the pin on its "tri-generation" network. The project had aimed to build a series of mini gas-fired power plants from the CBD to the biggest urban renewal site in Australia, at Green Square. It had planned to create "tri-gen" precincts through the city at Pyrmont, Martin Place and Town Hall. The project was shelved yesterday when the council pulled the pin on the first phase, the Green Square project, despite splashing $5 million on research, legal advice and peer reviews. The council had banked on government incentives, regulatory reforms and a carbon price to boost the economic case for its plans, which energy operators had warned would be a huge financial risk for ratepayers. Ms Moore blamed "economic and regulatory hurdles," the falling carbon price, restrictive electricity network regulations and gas price uncertainty. "We will not proceed with the precinct tri-generation agreement negotiated last year with Cogent Energy," she said. Instead of clean power for Green Square, Ms Moore said she would pursue the tri-gen scheme at Sydney Town Hall, Town Hall House and the Queen Victoria Building. Liberal councillor Christine Forster, who campaigned for the council to drop the scheme, welcomed the move and labelled it "half-baked and high-risk." "There were too many question marks over the technical and commercial risks involved in retrofitting gas-fired tri-generation power precincts in heavily developed parts of the city," she said. Rather than wasting millions of dollars studying tri-generation precincts, the City of Sydney should have been concentrating on sensible and cost-effective ways to cut its emissions through energy efficiency and renewables. Fellow Liberal councillor Edward Mandla, who described the plan as nutty and thought out on the "back of a beer coaster," was also pleased the project had been shelved. A spokeswoman for Cogent said the company was disappointed. Sydney City Council CEO Monica Barone said the "economics of tri-generation at Green Square don't stack up."