Energy minister Alan Carpenter is expected to confirm today that following a two-year tender process, the new 320MW gas-fired station will be built at Kwinana, next to the Cockburn power station, the West Australian newspaper reported this morning.

The losing bidders were coal miners Wesfarmers and Griffin Group.

Both of the coal-fired options were to have been built in the coal-mining town of Collie in the state’s south-west. Collie’s status as a marginal seat has given it a strong political influence.

But Western Australia is now moving towards a one-vote one-value system, and vote-weighting for non-metropolitan areas has been consigned to history. As Collie is surrounded by farming districts, the Labor government may have seen the seat as unwinnable at the next election anyway.

Current Collie-Wellington MP Mick Murray – a former Miners Union president – is thought to be considering his future with the ALP after learning of the decision to back gas over coal, the West Australian reported.

The station will be underwritten by a 25-year electricity supply contract with state-owned utility Western Power. Gas constraints were blamed for Perth’s February 2004 power cuts but Wambo has agreements in place with the new owners of the Dampier-to-Bunbury pipeline to transport gas from the North-West Shelf.

Price was the main reason Western Power recommended gas over coal. Gas was calculated as being about 15% cheaper than coal.

A coal-fired power station was estimated to cost up to A$150 million more to build than a gas-fired model. Wambo could also complete its plant one year earlier than the coal-fired proposals, helping avert the threat of more blackouts.

But the Gallop Government will also win kudos from many for choosing the better environmental option.

The gas-fired power station will generate less than half the greenhouse emissions of a comparable coal-fired power station, according to Wambo, which is backed by ERM Power and giant infrastructure fund Babcock & Brown.

It may not be coincidence that the state’s environmental watchdog warned yesterday that WA had to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Environmental Protection Authority chairman Dr Wally Cox said the state contributed 0.3% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, making it the highest per capita emitting region in the world.

Climate change had already damaged WA ecosystems, reduced water supplies and affected the pastoral and agricultural sectors, Cox said, while also increasing the state’s cyclone risk