Eraring Power Station | |
---|---|
![]() Eraring Power Station | |
![]() Location of Eraring Power Station in New South Wales | |
Country |
|
Location | near Dora Creek, Lake Macquarie, New South Wales, Australia |
Coordinates | 33°03′44″S151°31′13″E / 33.06222°S 151.52028°E |
Status | Operational |
Commission date | 1984 |
Owner(s) | Origin Energy |
Thermal power station | |
Primary fuel | Bituminous coal |
Turbine technology | Steam turbine - Subcritical |
Power generation | |
Units operational | 4 × 720 megawatts (970,000 hp) 1 x 42 megawatts (56,000 hp) |
Make and model | Tokyo Shibaura Electric (Japan) |
Nameplate capacity | 2,922 MW |
Capacity factor | 57% (average 1999-2023) |
Annual net output | 16,012 GW·h (average 2017-2021) |
External links | |
Commons | Related media on Commons |
Eraring Power Station is a coal-fired power station consisting of four 720 MW Toshiba steam-driven turbo-alternators for a combined capacity of 2,880 MW. The station is located near the township of Dora Creek, on the western shore of Lake Macquarie, New South Wales, Australia and is owned and operated by Origin Energy. It is Australia's largest power station. [1] The plant has two smokestacks rising 200 m (656 ft) in height. [2] It was scheduled for closure by mid-2025, after a failed attempt to sell the loss making power station back to the state government. [3] [4] The New South Wales Government in May 2024 extended the operational life of Eraring to August 2027. [5] [6] [7]
Construction of the power station began in 1977. The first turbo-alternator was brought online in 1982, with the second and third in 1983, and the fourth in 1984. [1] The generating capacity of each of the four turbines was upgraded from 660 MW to 720 MW between 2011 and 2012. [8] The process of upgrading the control room to a fully digital system was completed in 2005.
Salt water from Lake Macquarie is used for cooling and is supplied through a concrete tunnel which passes under Dora Creek and up to the station via open canal. Reclaimed sewage water from the Dora Creek Waste Water Treatment Works is heavily purified and used to generate steam for the turbines as opposed to using municipal potable water supplies. The salt water helps in the cooling of the superheated steam as well as moderation of the temperature of outlet water to minimise thermal pollution.
The coal comes from five mines in the local area, delivered by conveyor, rail and private road. There is significant coal storage capacity on site. Eraring power station employs the Fabric Filter system of dust collection, in which particulate emissions resulting from coal combustion are captured as opposed to being released into the atmosphere. Some of this material is stored in an area nearby while some is taken and used as a component of road base. From 2009 to 2013 the Eraring power station has been equipped with Dry Bottom Ash Handling Systems (the MAC - Magaldi Ash Cooler) at all four units.
Electricity generated at the station is transmitted through high voltage transmission lines. Turbines 1 and 2 are connected to a 330kV transmission line while turbines 3 and 4 are connected to a 500kV transmission line. It is scheduled to close by 2025. [9] It will close seven years sooner than expected, owing to its operator's inability to cope with the "influx of renewables." [10]
At 2.16 am on Friday 28 October 2011 unit 2B generator transformer exploded with the transformer oil catching fire. The oil fire burnt for approximately two days and the estimated repair cost was A$20 million. [11] [12] Fire and Rescue NSW, assisted by the New South Wales Rural Fire Service controlled the initial incident with subsequent investigations by NSW Police, the Office of Environment & Heritage and WorkCover NSW.
As of 2017, The power station has had allegations made against it, regarding the exceedance of NSW air pollution standards. [13] The EPA reported Mercury emissions of 1.3 kg, and has begun investigating the alleged under reporting of self collected emission data. [14]
The generation table uses eljmkt nemlog to obtain generation values for each year. Records date back to 2011.
Year | Total | ER01 | ER02 | ER03 | ER04 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
2011 | 13,659,058 | 2,312,987 | 3,517,022 | 3,431,958 | 4,397,091 |
2012 | 11,436,338 | 3,957,318 | 2,495,671 | 4,042,090 | 941,259 |
2013 | 11,212,750 | 2,466,760 | 2,919,034 | 2,627,003 | 3,199,953 |
2014 | 14,872,236 | 4,097,055 | 3,209,461 | 3,880,398 | 3,685,322 |
2015 | 13,859,264 | 3,143,835 | 3,401,995 | 3,467,143 | 3,846,291 |
2016 | 12,976,982 | 3,715,825 | 3,319,561 | 2,581,666 | 3,359,930 |
2017 | 17,808,059 | 4,590,572 | 4,214,507 | 4,429,132 | 4,573,848 |
2018 | 17,138,862 | 3,684,174 | 3,789,465 | 4,587,046 | 5,078,177 |
2019 | 17,180,757 | 4,129,736 | 4,919,873 | 3,213,348 | 4,917,800 |
2020 | 14,779,159 | 3,507,469 | 3,781,969 | 3,999,132 | 3,490,589 |
2021 | 13,151,237 | 3,307,567 | 3,530,184 | 3,910,043 | 2,403,443 |
The City of Lake Macquarie is a local government area in the Hunter Region in New South Wales, Australia. It was proclaimed a city from 7 September 1984. The city is situated adjacent to the city of Newcastle and is widely considered as a part of the Greater Newcastle area. The city is approximately 150 km (93 mi) north of Sydney. One of its major tourist attractions is its lake, also named Lake Macquarie.
Puget Sound Energy (PSE) is an energy utility company based in the U.S. state of Washington that provides electrical power and natural gas to the Puget Sound region. The utility serves electricity to more than 1.1 million customers in Island, King, Kitsap, Kittitas, Pierce, Skagit, Thurston, and Whatcom counties, and provides natural gas to 750,000 customers in King, Kittitas, Lewis, Pierce, Snohomish and Thurston counties. The company's electric and natural gas service area spans 6,000 square miles (16,000 km2).
A fossil fuel power station is a thermal power station which burns a fossil fuel, such as coal, oil, or natural gas, to produce electricity. Fossil fuel power stations have machinery to convert the heat energy of combustion into mechanical energy, which then operates an electrical generator. The prime mover may be a steam turbine, a gas turbine or, in small plants, a reciprocating gas engine. All plants use the energy extracted from the expansion of a hot gas, either steam or combustion gases. Although different energy conversion methods exist, all thermal power station conversion methods have their efficiency limited by the Carnot efficiency and therefore produce waste heat.
Origin Energy Ltd is an ASX listed public company with headquarters in Sydney. It is a major integrated electricity generator, and electricity and natural gas retailer. It operates Eraring Power Station, Australia’s largest coal-fired power station, in New South Wales, which it plans to close in 2025. In 2022, it was Australia's fourth largest climate polluter. It owns 20% of Octopus Energy, a UK renewable energy retailer, a stake potentially worth billions of dollars.
Munmorah Power Station is a demolished coal-fired power station with four 350 MW English Electric steam driven turbo-alternators for a combined capacity of 1,400 MW. The station was located near Doyalson, on the shores of Lake Munmorah, New South Wales, Australia and was owned and operated by Delta Electricity, a company owned by the New South Wales Government.
Vales Point Power Station is one of two operating coal fired power stations on the shores of Lake Macquarie, New South Wales. Vales Point is located on the southern shore of the lake, near the township of Mannering Park. It has two steam turbines, with a total generating capacity of 1,320 MW (1,770,000 hp) of electricity.
Liddell Power Station is a decommissioned coal-fired thermal power station that had four 500 megawatts (670,000 hp) EE steam-driven turbine alternators, providing a combined electrical capacity of 2,000 megawatts (2,700,000 hp).
Bayswater Power Station is a bituminous (black) coal-powered thermal power station with four 660 megawatts (890,000 hp) Tokyo Shibaura Electric (Japan) steam driven turbo alternators for a combined capacity of 2,640 megawatts (3,540,000 hp). Commissioned between 1985 and 1986, the station is located 16 kilometres (10 mi) from Muswellbrook, and 28 km (17 mi) from Singleton in the Hunter Region of New South Wales, Australia.
The Blayney wind farm is a wind power station at Lake Carcoar, south of Blayney, New South Wales, Australia. It was acquired by Trustpower in 2014, and is now owned by Tilt Renewables. Blayney has fifteen wind turbines, with a total nameplate capacity of 9.9 MW of electricity.
The Huntly Power Station is the largest thermal power station in New Zealand and is located in the town of Huntly in the Waikato. It is operated by Genesis Energy Limited, a publicly listed company. The station has five operational generating units – three 250 MW coal-and-gas-fired steam turbine units, a 50 MW gas peaking plant, and a 403 MW combined cycle gas turbine plant. The station also plays an important role in voltage support for the Northland, Auckland and Waikato regions.
Eraring Energy was an electricity generation company in Australia that was owned by the Government of New South Wales, and had a portfolio of generating sites using thermal coal, wind, and hydroelectric power. It was sold to Origin Energy in 2013.
AGL Energy Ltd is an Australian listed public company involved in both the generation and retailing of electricity and gas for residential and commercial use. AGL is Australia's largest electricity generator, and the nation's largest carbon emitter. In 2022, 83% of its energy came from burning coal. It produces more emissions as a single company than the nations of New Zealand, Portugal or Sweden, according to its largest shareholder, Mike Cannon-Brookes, who named it "one of the most toxic companies on the planet".
Renewable energy in Australia is mainly based on biomass, solar, wind, and hydro generation. Over a third of electricity is generated from renewables, and is increasing, with a target to phase out coal power before 2040. Wind energy and rooftop solar have particularly grown since 2010. The growth has been stimulated by government energy policy in order to limit the rate of climate change in Australia that has been brought about by the use of fossil fuels. Pros and cons of various types of renewable energy are being investigated, and more recently there have been trials of green hydrogen and wave power.
The Kogan Creek Power Station is a 750 megawatt coal fired power station owned by CS Energy on the Darling Downs in Queensland. The $1.2 billion plant is situated at Brigalow, in the Surat Basin between Dalby and Chinchilla.
Wangi Power Station is a heritage-listed former coal-fired power station at Wangi Wangi, City of Lake Macquarie, New South Wales on Lake Macquarie. The power station operated between 1956 and 1986 and supplied electricity to New South Wales. It was once the largest in the state. The 12,000-square-metre (130,000 sq ft) building was listed on the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999.
The Newport Power Station was a complex of power stations located on the west bank of the Yarra River, approximately 6 km south-west of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, in the suburb of Newport. Newport A, B, and C were coal-fired plants which operated at the site between 1919 and the 1980s, and were claimed to be the largest power station in the southern hemisphere in 1953 with 42 boilers and 14 turbo-alternators producing 327 megawatts (439,000 hp).
The Taichung Power Plant is a coal-fired power plant in Longjing, Taichung, Taiwan (ROC). With an installed coal-fired generation capacity of 5,500 MW, it is the fourth largest coal-fired power station in the world. Together with its gas-fired and wind generation units, the total installed capacity of the plant is 5,824 MW.
Macquarie Generation is an electricity generation company in New South Wales, Australia, owned by AGL Energy, and has a portfolio of generating sites using predominantly thermal coal power. The company now trades as AGL Macquarie and generates electricity for sale under contract.
The NSW government considered a pitch to buy the loss-making Eraring Power Station in secret talks with Origin Energy last year. But the deal fell apart amid government concerns that underwriting a plan to keep the coal-fired power station open longer could "crowd out" other investments in energy.