Playford A Power Station was the first power station built by the Electricity Trust of South Australia at Port Paterson, South Australia near Port Augusta. It was built in 1954 to generate electricity from coal mined from the Telford Cut at Leigh Creek and transported 250 kilometres (160 mi) by rail.
It was joined by the Playford B Power Station in 1963, and the Northern Power Station in 1985.
The first unit of the power station was opened by Governor Robert George on 23 July 1954. [2] It was the first power station in South Australia which did not require the importation of fuel from interstate. It was expected to take a few years before all six units were operational. [3] The life of Playford A and B stations was expected to be 30 years, the supply of coal then known to be available from Leigh Creek. [4] Playford A was decommissioned in 1985, however the building remained until all three power stations were demolished in 2018. [5]
Flinders Power, a division of Alinta Energy, contracted out the demolition of all three power stations and remediating the site. [6] The demolition and 1068ha site rehabilitation was completed in May 2019. [7]
Port Augusta is a coastal city in South Australia about 310 kilometres (190 mi) by road from the state capital, Adelaide. Most of the city is on the eastern shores of Spencer Gulf, immediately south of the gulf's head, comprising the city's centre and surrounding suburbs, Stirling North, and seaside homes at Commissariat Point, Blanche Harbor and Miranda. The suburb of Port Augusta West is on the western side of the gulf on the Eyre Peninsula. Together, these localities had a population of 13,515 people in the 2021 census.
Quorn is a small town and railhead in the Flinders Ranges in the north of South Australia, 39 kilometres (24 mi) northeast of Port Augusta.
The former Central Australia Railway, which was built between 1878 and 1929 and dismantled in 1980, was a 1241 km (771 mi) 1067 mm narrow gauge railway between Port Augusta and Alice Springs. A standard gauge line duplicated the southern section from Port Augusta to Maree in 1957 on a new nearby alignment. The entire Central Australia Railway was superseded in 1980 after the standard gauge Tarcoola–Alice Springs Railway was opened, using a new route up to 200 km to the west. A small southern section of the original line between Port Augusta and Quorn has been preserved and is operated as the Pichi Richi Railway.
The City of Port Augusta is a local government area located at the northern end of Spencer Gulf in South Australia. It is centred on the town of Port Augusta.
Leigh Creek is a former coal-mining town in eastern central South Australia. At the 2016 census, Leigh Creek had a population of 245, a 55% decrease from 550 in the previous census in 2011.
The Electricity Trust of South Australia (ETSA) was the South Australian Government-owned monopoly vertically integrated electricity provider from 1946 until its privatisation in 1999.
Torrens Island Power Station is located on Torrens Island, near Adelaide, South Australia and is operated by AGL Energy. It burns natural gas in eight steam turbines to generate up to 1,280 MW of electricity. The gas is supplied via the SEAGas pipeline from Victoria, and the Moomba Adelaide Pipeline System (MAPS) from Moomba in the Cooper Basin. The station is capable of burning either natural gas or fuel oil. It is the largest power station in South Australia and was formerly the largest single power station user of natural gas in Australia.
Northern Power Station was located at Port Paterson, South Australia about 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) south of the city centre of Port Augusta. It was coal powered with two 260 MW steam turbines that generated a total of 520 MW of electricity. It was operated and maintained by Alinta Energy and was commissioned in 1985. Northern received coal by rail from the Telford Cut coal mine, 280 km to the north. The plant ceased electricity production in May 2016 and decommissioned and demolished over the following few years.
Playford B Power Station was located at Port Paterson, South Australia about 5.5 kilometres (3.4 mi) south of the city centre of Port Augusta. It was coal powered with four 60 MW steam turbines that generated a total of 240 MW of electricity. Playford B received coal by rail from the Telford Cut coal mine, 280 km to the north and drew cooling water from Spencer Gulf, returning it to the sea at an elevated temperature. Commissioned in 1963, it was co-located with the older Playford A Power Station and the larger, newer Northern Power Station. Playford B was mothballed in 2012 and its permanent closure was announced by operator Alinta Energy in October 2015. Prior to being mothballed, it primarily operated in the summer, when electricity demand peaks.
Telford Cut was an open-cut coal mine, now closed, in the Leigh Creek Coalfield in South Australia. For the 72 years between its opening in 1943 and its closure, the mine supplied sub-bituminous coal to fire power stations first in Adelaide then, from 1954, Port Augusta. Production ceased in November 2015 but stockpiled product was transported to Port Augusta until the last power station closed down in May 2016.
Alinta Energy is an Australian electricity generating and gas retailing private company owned by Hong Kong–based Chow Tai Fook Enterprises (CTFE). The sale for $4 billion was approved by Treasurer Scott Morrison in 2017. Alinta Energy has an owned and contracted generation portfolio of up to 1,957 MW, approximately 1.1 million combined electricity and gas retail customers and around 800 employees across Australia and New Zealand.
Wooltana Station, most commonly known as Wooltana, is a pastoral lease that operates as a sheep station in outback South Australia. It lies on what were formerly the lands of the Pilatapa.
The Morgan – Whyalla pipeline was an engineering project undertaken by the South Australian Government in 1940 to bring water from Morgan on the River Murray to the industrial city of Whyalla. A second pipeline, by a divergent route, was laid in the 1960s.
Marree railway station was located on the Central Australia Railway, and later the Marree railway line serving the small South Australian outback town of Marree.
The Marree railway line is located in the Australian state of South Australia.
The Corporate Town of Port Augusta West was a local government area in South Australia centred on the suburb of Port Augusta West. It was gazetted on 6 October 1887. They met in council chambers in Loudon Road, which ceased to be used by its successor council upon its amalgamation, but remained in use by the community until their demolition in the 1940s, at which time the building was described as "definitely unsafe". It was not uncommon for positions to be elected unopposed or without any nominations at all; in the election of November 1903, no one nominated for either mayor or councillor.
Port Paterson is a locality in the Australian state of South Australia located on the east coast of Spencer Gulf at the gulf's northern end about 237.4 kilometres north of the state capital of Adelaide and about 9 kilometres south of the centre of Port Augusta.
Hugh Thomas Moffitt Angwin CMG was Engineer-in-Chief of South Australia from 1936 to 1949.
Reeves Plains Power Station is a proposal from Alinta Energy to build a gas-fired power station at Reeves Plains between Gawler and Mallala in South Australia. The proposed site borders both the Moomba-Adelaide gas pipe and an electricity transmission line. The power station is proposed to use six gas turbines to produce up to 300 megawatts (400,000 hp) of electricity. It is expected to be operated as a peaking plant rather than running full time. The primary source of fuel will be the gas pipeline, however the plant will also be able to operate on diesel fuel, and will have diesel storage on site. Stage 1 is expected to only be two or three of the turbines, generating 100 to 150 MW of electricity. The power station was originally expected to take 12 months to build, and be commissioned in January 2019. An extension of time request granted an additional 12 months in February 2019, but as of November 2019, the Alinta board had not yet decided to make the investment.