September 29, 2014

This morning’s news that Swanbank E power station near Ipswich will stay online for at least another two months will have no affect on the timing of the return to service of Unit 2 at Tarong Power Station.

This was confirmed by a Stanwell spokesman this afternoon.

In February, Stanwell announced that its two mothballed power generating units at Tarong – Units 2 and 4 – would be restarted and Swanbank E’s gas-fired generator would be put into cold storage.

At the time, Stanwell said the corporation would in future be balancing its hydro-electric, coal and gas generation to achieve the best value-for-money mix at any time.

Unit 4 at Tarong has already gone back online; Unit 2 is expected to be restarted sometime next year.

ABC Radio reported this morning that Stanwell had decided to the delay the mothballing of Swanbank E because there was an excess of gas available at the moment, meaning costs had fallen.

According to the ABC, the 30 workers who had been expected to lost their jobs when Swanbank switched off, have also been given a two-month reprieve.

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The Stanwell spokesman also confirmed today that Tarong North power station returned to service last Wednesday (September 24).

Tarong North’s single generating unit went offline on July 23 because of damage to its turbine.

It was offline for 100 days.

“Final retuning was done late last week and the unit is now fully available for commercial operations up to a load of 400MW,” the spokesman said.

This is slightly below its maximum output of 443MW.

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