Kemerton Power Station is a power station 17 km northeast of
Bunbury in
Western Australia. It is located in an area known as the Kemerton Industrial Park. The location had been considered as being Kemerton, in the 1980s as a potential aluminium smelter location, but is now considered to be part of
Wellesley. The consideration of the site as being appropriate as a power station site was being considered in the early 2000s.
It is rated at 300 MW using two
Siemens
Siemens AG ( ) is a German multinational conglomerate corporation and the largest industrial manufacturing company in Europe headquartered in Munich with branch offices abroad.
The principal divisions of the corporation are ''Industry'', '' ...
open cycle gas turbine generators powered by
natural gas. It operates as a
peaking plant
Peaking power plants, also known as peaker plants, and occasionally just "peakers", are power plants that generally run only when there is a high demand, known as peak demand, for electricity. Because they supply power only occasionally, the power ...
and provides electricity into the
South West Interconnected System (SWIS). When it was built in 2005, it was rated at 260.9 MW, and received an upgrade to the current capacity in June 2008. When gas is not available, the power station can also operate on fuel oil.
Gas is supplied to the Kemerton Power Station via a 4.94 km lateral branch from the
Dampier to Bunbury Natural Gas Pipeline. The branch line is a 300 mm diameter steel pipe with 6.4 mm wall thickness.
Kemerton power station also has four 1.25 MW diesel generators completed in October 2018. These are used in a contract with the
Australian Energy Market Operator
The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) performs an array of gas and electricity market, operational, development and planning functions. It manages the National Electricity Market (NEM), the Wholesale Electricity Market (WA) (WEM) and th ...
to provide the capability for a
black start on the SWISÂ if needed.
References
Natural gas-fired power stations in Western Australia
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