Stanwell Power Station is a coal-fired power generation station located in
Stanwell, south-west of
Rockhampton,
Queensland
)
, nickname = Sunshine State
, image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg
, map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name = Australia
, established_title = Before federation
, establishe ...
,
Australia. At the time of construction, it was one of the largest industrial developments undertaken in Queensland. With a capacity to generate 1,445
megawatts
The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James Wat ...
(MW), Stanwell Power Station supplies electricity for distribution to customers via the state's high voltage electricity grid.
Stanwell was commissioned in 1992 and became fully operational in 1996.
It is located on 4,000 acres (1,600 hectares) of land.
Construction of the station took seven years, with infrastructure built to withstand cyclonic winds.
Fuel
Coal is transport via rail from several Central Queensland coal mines.
About 4 million tons of coal are used each year.
Design
There are four generating units at Stanwell Power Station. The four units and their components are housed in a 20 storey boiler house and a turbine hall the length of three football fields. The power station is highly automated and achieves both an efficient, effective workplace and high asset performance through the application of innovative technology and organisational design. These innovations have been recognised both nationally and internationally. Stanwell Power Station previously held the world record at 1,073 days of continuous operation on Unit 4.
[World Record for Continuous Operation](_blank)
. Guinness World Records. Retrieved on 27 November 2021. This was surpassed in 2021 by Canadian public entity
Ontario Power Generation
Ontario Power Generation Inc. (OPG) is a Crown corporation and "government business enterprise" that is responsible for approximately half of the electricity generation in the province of Ontario, Canada. It is wholly owned by the governmen ...
's Darlington Nuclear Generating Station Unit 1, which ran for 1,106 days continuous.
The station features a 210-metre-high-chimney stack which was constructed using approximately 750,000 bricks.
The station has two
cooling tower
A cooling tower is a device that rejects waste heat to the atmosphere through the cooling of a coolant stream, usually a water stream to a lower temperature. Cooling towers may either use the evaporation of water to remove process heat an ...
s, each stands 130 metres high (about the height of a 40-storey building) and is 100 metres in diameter.
Fifteen thousand cubic metres of concrete was poured for each tower.
The plume seen coming from the cooling towers is steam, lost through evaporation during the water-cooling process.
See also
*
List of active power stations in Queensland
References
External links
{{EnergyQueensland
Coal-fired power stations in Queensland
Rockhampton Region
Energy infrastructure completed in 1996
1996 establishments in Australia
Buildings and structures in Central Queensland