The company formerly known as GDF Suez, Energi, has reportedly been considering plans to considering plans to reinvent the ageing facility into a clean-energy operation for several years.

There have been howls of outrage from environmentalists, who already stated opposition to waste wood burning for fuel, and have long called for the plant to be pensioned off and decommissioned.

By burning both wood and coal Hazelwood would not only reduce emissions but produce renewable energy credits.

Last week Energi confirmed to the ABC that it had completed a number of trials using plantation material over the past decade, albeit with varying degrees of success.

Using waste wood was recently included in the renegotiated 33,000 gigawatt hour Renewable Energy Target, and has the support of the Abbott government, which said there were volumes of waste out of the forestry industry that could be put to good use, such as sub-prime and 'residual' logs to make harvesting operations more economic.

The definition of waste used by the woodchip industry is any tree not suitable for saw-logging, which could be up to half of all trees felled.

When the RET was renegotiated it was said that biomass used for electricity would be a “very small amount,” and would only ever be a “localised industry”

The conversion to co-firing is considered cheap and simple, however, the costs of transporting wood to the Latrobe Valley is considered a major barrier to any conversion.

Those against wood biomass said including native forest burning in the RET would restrict the uptake of real renewables, would deplete forest carbon stocks and reduce more CO2, ravage native forests, release toxins into the atmosphere and mean increased subsidies for an industry already heavily subsidised by taxpayers.

A May 2015 poll in the federal seats of Eden Monaro and Corangamite found most voters would be less likely to buy electricity from a company that produced it from burning forests.

Yesterday, Corangamite Liberal MP Sarah Henderson put pressure on government to reverse its directive to stop the Clean Energy Finance Corporation from investing in wind farms and household solar.

Earlier this year the newly-elected Victorian Labor government reneged on a 2010 promise to close parts of the Hazelwood power station in the Latrobe Valley, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in November.

Hazelwood has been accused of a reported spike in deaths in the wake of last year’s Hazelwood mine fire that burned for 45 days, choking the town of Morwell in smoke and ash.

In May the old Anglesea coal mine and power station announced it was closing, and green groups said they would next target Hazelwood.