Playford B Power Station was located at Port Paterson in the

Australian state The states and territories are federated administrative divisions in Australia, ruled by regional governments that constitute the second level of governance between the federal government and local governments. States are self-governing ...

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

about south of the city centre of

Port Augusta Port Augusta is a small city in South Australia. Formerly a port, seaport, it is now a road traffic and Junction (rail), railway junction city mainly located on the east coast of the Spencer Gulf immediately south of the gulf's head and about ...

. It was coal powered with four 60 MW

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 ...

that generated a total of 240 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 ...

. Playford B received coal by rail from the Leigh Creek Coal Mine, 280 km to the north and drew cooling water from

Spencer Gulf The Spencer Gulf is the westernmost and larger of two large inlets (the other being Gulf St Vincent) on the southern coast of Australia, in the state of South Australia, facing the Great Australian Bight. It spans from the Cape Catastrophe and ...

, returning it to the sea at an elevated temperature. Commissioned in 1963, it was co-located with the older

Playford A Power Station Playford may refer to: Places * City of Playford, Australia * Electoral district of Playford, Australia * Playford B Power Station, South Australia * Playford, Suffolk, a village in England * Hotel in Australia, part of Accor Hotels People *The ...

and the larger, newer Northern Power Station. Playford B was mothballed in 2012 and its permanent closure was announced by operator

Alinta Energy Alinta Energy is an Australian electricity generating and gas retailing private company owned by Hong Kong-based Chow Tai Fook Enterprises (CTFE). It was sold for $4 billion and was approved Treasurer Scott Morrison in 2017. Alinta Energy has an ...

in October 2015. Prior to being mothballed, it primarily operated in the summer, when electricity demand peaks.

Emissions

Air

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 emitted 1.77 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 coal. The Australian Government announced the introduction of a

Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme The Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (or CPRS) was a cap-and-trade emissions trading scheme for anthropogenic greenhouse gases proposed by the Rudd government, as part of its climate change policy, which had been due to commence in Australia in ...

commencing in 2010 to help combat climate change. It was expected to impact on emissions from power stations. Th
National Pollutant Inventory
provides details of other pollutant emissions, but, as at 23 November 2008, not .

Marine

The power station drew seawater from Upper

for cooling and discharged it back into the Spencer Gulf 6.6 °C warmer than the original intake water temperature. The rate of flow was 14.5 m³ per second. In addition to thermal pollution, other marine discharges include (from greatest to smallest):

fluoride Fluoride (). According to this source, is a possible pronunciation in British English. is an inorganic, monatomic anion of fluorine, with the chemical formula (also written ), whose salts are typically white or colorless. Fluoride salts typ ...

boron Boron is a chemical element with the symbol B and atomic number 5. In its crystalline form it is a brittle, dark, lustrous metalloid; in its amorphous form it is a brown powder. As the lightest element of the ''boron group'' it has th ...

arsenic Arsenic is a chemical element with the symbol As and atomic number 33. Arsenic occurs in many minerals, usually in combination with sulfur and metals, but also as a pure elemental crystal. Arsenic is a metalloid. It has various allotropes, but ...

manganese Manganese is a chemical element with the symbol Mn and atomic number 25. It is a hard, brittle, silvery metal, often found in minerals in combination with iron. Manganese is a transition metal with a multifaceted array of industrial alloy use ...

chromium Chromium is a chemical element with the symbol Cr and atomic number 24. It is the first element in group 6. It is a steely-grey, lustrous, hard, and brittle transition metal. Chromium metal is valued for its high corrosion resistance and hardne ...

copper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkis ...

nickel Nickel is a chemical element with symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal. Pure nickel is chemically reactive but large pieces are slow to ...

and

mercury Mercury commonly refers to: * Mercury (planet), the nearest planet to the Sun * Mercury (element), a metallic chemical element with the symbol Hg * Mercury (mythology), a Roman god Mercury or The Mercury may also refer to: Companies * Merc ...

Closure

The plant was mothballed in 2012 with Alinta Energy citing 'market conditions'. Though not stated explicitly, the primary causes are likely to be flat or declining demand and increasing penetration of renewables such as wind and rooftop solar PV. In the financial year 2012-13, the plant did not generate electricity but was in a status of active storage, on a potential 90-day recall. No emissions were reported to the National Pollution Inventory that year. With the closure of Playford B imminent, the Australian Government came under pressure from the local community through a community vote and a national campaign to replace Playford and eventually Northern with concentrated solar thermal power generation technology. This campaign brought together diverse groups including the

Australian Youth Climate Coalition The Australian Youth Climate Coalition (AYCC) is a youth organisation in Australia. When the organisation first began, the coalition consisted of 25 other youth organisations, which included the National Union of Students amongst many, however ...

under the name Repower Port Augusta. On 11 June 2015, Alinta Energy announced its intent to permanently close the power station by March 2018, along with the related Northern Power Station, and the Leigh Creek coal mine that supplied them both with fuel. On 30 July 2015, Alinta Energy announced it was bringing the closure dates of all three facilities forward by 12 months, and intended to no longer operate them past March 2017 and could shut them down as early as March 2016. On 7 October 2015, Alinta Energy announced the permanent closure of Northern and Playford B around 31 March 2016, effectively meaning that Playford B would never re-open. In January 2016, Alinta announced that the closure date had been set back to 8 May 2016 and the Northern Power Station was shut down on 9 May. Demolition of both stations and site remediation work were expected to take 18 to 24 months to complete. The power stations were demolished and the 1068ha site rehabilitated, including cover over the ash pond. This was completed in May 2019.

Fly ash playa and health concerns

With the permanent closure of the Playford and Northern power stations at Port Augusta, dampening flows of water across the adjacent fly ash playa ceased. This allowed the fly ash, which contains

crystalline silica Silicon dioxide, also known as silica, is an oxide of silicon with the chemical formula , most commonly found in nature as quartz and in various living organisms. In many parts of the world, silica is the major constituent of sand. Silica is one ...

, to become airborne. On several occasions in 2016 and 2017, plumes of the fine grey fly ash powder became visible rising from the power station site and blew into the town of Port Augusta, concerning residents and impacting air quality. In February 2017, topsoil application trials were underway and liquid odour suppressant was being applied periodically to the flyash dam.

References

External links

Alinta Energy
on Flinders Power Station
Repower Port Augusta

ABC News - Explosion collapses chimney of old Port Augusta power station

NoFingerPrints.net - Photos inside Northern & Playford Power Stations
{{EnergySA Coal-fired power stations in South Australia Far North (South Australia) Former power stations in Australia Port Augusta