Tamar Valley Power Station is a $230 million

natural gas Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbo ...

-fired

power station A power station, also referred to as a power plant and sometimes generating station or generating plant, is an industrial facility for the generation of electric power. Power stations are generally connected to an electrical grid. Many p ...

located in Bell Bay in the Tamar Valley,

Tasmania ) , nickname = , image_map = Tasmania in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Tasmania in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdi ...

. It is owned by

Hydro Tasmania Hydro Tasmania, known for most of its history as the Hydro-Electric Commission (HEC) or The Hydro, is the trading name of the Hydro-Electric Corporation, a Tasmanian Government business enterprise which is the predominant electricity generator i ...

, and is immediately adjacent to the decommissioned

Bell Bay Power Station The Bell Bay Power Station was a power station located in Bell Bay, on the Tamar River, Tasmania, Australia, adjacent to the Tamar Valley Power Station, with which it was often confused. It was commissioned between 1971 and 1974 as an oil fir ...

, which is also owned by Hydro Tasmania. The station's total nameplate capacity is 388 MW, and includes four peaking units totalling 178 MW, and one base-load

combined cycle A combined cycle power plant is an assembly of heat engines that work in tandem from the same source of heat, converting it into mechanical energy. On land, when used to make electricity the most common type is called a combined cycle gas turb ...

unit of 210 MW. The four peaking units are: three 40 MW (total 120 MW) pre-existing (from the

) Pratt & Whitney FT8 Twin Pac gas turbine alternators (Units 101-103), and a single 58 MW Rolls-Royce Trent 60WLE gas turbine alternator (Unit 104) commissioned in May 2009. The base-load unit is a 210 MW Mitsubishi M701DA gas turbine operating in combined cycle mode (Unit 201) which completed commissioning in September 2009. The Mitsubishi's combined cycle capacity of 210 MW includes 140 MW generated directly by the M701 gas turbine, and a further 70 MW generated by the Mitsubishi steam turbine generator set. At the time of conception, the

Tasmanian Government The Tasmanian Government is the democratic administrative authority of the state of Tasmania, Australia. The leader of the party or coalition with the confidence of the House of Assembly, the lower house of the Parliament of Tasmania, is invite ...

allowed Aurora Energy to enter into long term energy supply agreement with

Alinta Alinta was an Australian energy infrastructure company. It has grown from a small, Western Australia-based gas distributor and retailer to the largest energy infrastructure company in Australia. It was bought in 2007 by a consortium including S ...

. During 2008 the Tasmanian Government via Aurora Energy acquired the construction project from the then owner Babcock & Brown Power (who had earlier purchased Alinta Energy generation assets). Aurora set up a fully owned subsidiary company "AETV Power" to complete and operate the power station assets. On 1 June 2013 the State Government transferred the ownership of the power station from Aurora Energy to

, another state owned enterprise, and the predominant generator of electricity in the state. Following its commissioning, low electricity demand, strong rainfall and substantial use of the

Basslink The Basslink () electricity interconnector is a high-voltage direct current (HVDC) cable linking the electricity grids of the states of Victoria and Tasmania in Australia, crossing Bass Strait, connecting the Loy Yang Power Station, Victoria on ...

interconnector An interconnector (also known as a DC tie in the USA) is a structure which enables high voltage DC electricity to flow between electrical grids. An electrical interconnector allows electricity to flow between separate AC networks, or to link sy ...

with Victoria meant that the station generated only small volumes of electricity. In June 2014 Hydro Tasmania commenced the process of mothballing the combined cycle unit, and in January 2015 it sought the Tasmanian Government's approval to sell the unit. In August 2015 Hydro Tasmania announced that the combined-cycle unit was not required for

energy security Energy security is the association between national security and the availability of natural resources for energy consumption. Access to (relatively) cheap energy has become essential to the functioning of modern economies. However, the uneven ...

and would be decommissioned and sold. The open-cycle units would be retained for peaking duty. However, only a few months later in December, Hydro Tasmania hired 12 temporary workers at the plant, indicating that the combined-cycle unit may be used again to slow the rate at which Hydro Tasmania's dam storages were depleted. On 21 December 2015,

, the

HVDC A high-voltage direct current (HVDC) electric power transmission system (also called a power superhighway or an electrical superhighway) uses direct current (DC) for electric power transmission, in contrast with the more common alternating curren ...

interconnector with Victoria, was disconnected due to a faulty interconnector. It was originally expected that Basslink would be repaired and returned to service by 19 March 2016; however, the link was not restored until 13 June 2016. A separate non-cable fault caused another failure of power flow on 22 June. After almost 36 hours power flow was again restored in the evening of 23 June. Because of the

2016 Tasmanian energy crisis The 2016 Tasmanian energy crisis was an ongoing energy storage situation in the state of Tasmania, Australia in 2016. Two years of high volumes of energy exported to Victoria via the Basslink HVDC cable, followed by low rainfall, and a fault whi ...

, Hydro Tasmania recommissioned Tamar Valley Power Station to help meet Tasmania's electricity needs.

References

{{EnergyTasmania Natural gas-fired power stations in Tasmania Tamar River Energy crisis, 2016

See also

References