Mount Piper Power Station is a

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when dea ...

powered power station with two

steam turbines A steam turbine is a machine that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam and uses it to do mechanical work on a rotating output shaft. Its modern manifestation was invented by Charles Parsons in 1884. Fabrication of a modern steam turbin ...

with a combined generating capacity of 1,400 MW of

electricity Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described ...

. It is located near

Portland Portland most commonly refers to: * Portland, Oregon, the largest city in the state of Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States * Portland, Maine, the largest city in the state of Maine, in the New England region of the northeas ...

, in the Central West of

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

and owned by

EnergyAustralia EnergyAustralia (formerly TRUenergy) is an electricity generation, electricity and gas retailing private company in Australia, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Hong Kong-based and listed China Light and Power (CLP Group). EnergyAustralia also ...

, a subsidiary of

CLP Group CLP Group () and its holding company, CLP Holdings Ltd (), also known as China Light and Power Company, Limited (now CLP Power Hong Kong Ltd., ), is an electricity company in Hong Kong. Incorporated in 1901 as China Light & Power Company Syndi ...

. On 23 September 2021, it was announced that the closure of the power station is being brought forward from 2042 to 2040 at the latest. The power station employs 250 workers.

Construction

The first generator (Unit 2) was completed in 1992, and the second (Unit 1) in 1993. Units 3 and 4, although planned, were not built. It was the last power station built by the Electricity Commission of New South Wales (a body since abolished). Much of the design work done was undertaken in-house by the commission. In 2009 Delta Electricity (the government owned enterprise that previously owned and managed the power station as a commercial entity) unofficially re-rated the units at Mount Piper from their original 660MW to 700MW. In 2007 & early 2008 there was public talk of 'completing' the power station by using modern super-critical, dry-cooling tower, coal-fired units of up to 1000MW capacity which uses much less water from surrounding rivers. On 7 April 2010 the

New South Wales Department of Planning The New South Wales Department of Planning and Environment (DPE) is a department of the New South Wales Government, responsible for effective and sustainable planning to support the growth in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It makes pl ...

announced that approval had been given to

Delta Electricity Delta Electricity is an electricity generation company in Australia. The company was formed by the Government of New South Wales in 1996 as part of its reform of the electricity sector in the State, which saw the breakup of the Electricity Commi ...

to 'complete' the station by installing 2000MW of new generating capacity.

Technical

Mount Piper draws its cooling water from Lyell Dam and Thomsons Creek Dam, both purpose-built for the station. Lyell Dam is located on the

Coxs River The Coxs River, a perennial river that is part of the Hawkesbury-Nepean catchment, is located in the Central Tablelands, Blue Mountains, and Macarthur regions of New South Wales, Australia. Course and features The Coxs River rises in Gardin ...

away. Large pumps draw water from the dam and transfer it to a pipeline built between Thompsons Creek Dam and Mount Piper. The power station taking what water it needs and the excess flowing into Thompsons Creek Dam. When no pumps are in service the water supply to the power station is gravity fed from Thompsons Creek Dam.

Carbon Monitoring for Action The Center for Global Development (CGD) is a nonprofit think tank based in Washington, D.C., and London that focuses on international development. History It was founded in November 2001 by former senior U.S. official Edward W. Scott, direc ...

estimates this power station emits 9.08 million tonnes of

greenhouse gases A greenhouse gas (GHG or GhG) is a gas that absorbs and emits radiant energy within the thermal infrared range, causing the greenhouse effect. The primary greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere are water vapor (), carbon dioxide (), methane ...

each year as a result of burning

. The National Pollutant Inventory provides details of other pollutant emissions, but, as at 23 November 2008, not .

Operations

The generation table use
eljmkt nemlog
to obtain generation values for each year. Records date back to 2011.

References

External links

page o
Mount Piper
{{Energy in New South Wales Coal-fired power stations in New South Wales

Construction

Technical

Operations

See also

References

External links