Steam rises from the Unit 4 boiler (the first big box on the left) for the first time in 18 months
(Photo: John Carey)

July 30, 2014

The mothballed Unit 4 unit at Tarong Power Station – taken offline and put into “cold storage” 18 months ago – is back up and running, generating electricity.

It has taken a skilled team of workers at Stanwell to ensure the restart went smoothly.

“Everyone has worked extremely well together and the restart is a great example of what our team can achieve,” Tarong site manager Dennis Franklin said.

Unit 4 was resynchronised, meaning it can send electricity into the national grid, last Wednesday (July 24)  and began operating with an output of about 200 MW.

“There is still some work to be done before full commercial service resumes but the important thing is that the unit is back and its return has been carried out safely and professionally,” Mr Franklin said.

“There is a large group of people who have worked very hard to make this return possible, from the people who made the original decisions on how the unit would be stored to those who pressed the synchronising button on Wednesday.”

The Tarong team created a number of engineering firsts in bringing back Unit 4 from cold storage, including:

  • A turbine rotor being successfully repaired in Australia for the first time – at Maitland in NSW. Previously rotors had to be sent overseas for repairs
  • This is the first time Tarong or Stanwell has attempted to return a unit from cold storage
  • This is possibly only the second time a Queensland power station has successfully returned a unit from cold storage – a unit was returned from cold storage in Gladstone a number of years ago

Three of the five generating units at the Tarong site are now producing electricity.

Unit 2, taken offline at about the same time as Unit 4, is still in cold storage but is scheduled to return to service next year.

The Tarong North unit, which unexpectedly went offline on June 16, is expected to return to service by early October.

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Workers unload the repaired Unit 4 rotor ahead of re-installation last month (Photo: Stanwell)