A $152 million maintenance and upgrade program has commenced at AGL's Bayswater power station, the largest maintenance outage works ever undertaken on the Bayswater site.
More than 600 contractors from across Australia will work on the project, which is expected to run until late June 2021.
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The works include a turbine upgrade, replacing the unit's distributed control system, as well as a cooling tower repack and maintenance works on boiler, gas air heater and electrical plants.
The outage will allow for progress through the next stage of Bayswater's 100 megawatt upgrade on all generating units. The upgrade will also improve the power station's capacity by providing enough energy for up to 175,000 homes, without increasing coal consumption and emissions.
"Like most large thermal power stations, Bayswater has four separate generating units, allowing us to take each unit out of service for maintenance without impacting the security of supply for NSW," AGL chief operating officer Markus Brokhof said.
"Contractors will be coming from across the country to support these works and we're pleased to be bringing a much-needed economic boost to our region after the impacts of bushfires, drought and the pandemic.
"These works play a particularly important role in supporting local businesses to recover from the past 12 months and helping the region to bounce back even stronger."
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While the neighbouring Liddell power station is due to close in 2023, Bayswater is scheduled to continue operating until 2035.
The upgrade also includes improvements to systems for managing coal ash, water and salt.
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The existing ash dam will be augmented to provide additional ash storage capacity.
Improvements will be made to water management systems to ensure continued collection and reuse of process water and return waters from the ash dam.
The project will also increase coal ash recycling activities to produce up to 1 million tonnes per annum of ash derived product material and reuse of coal ash.
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Matthew Kelly
Matthew Kelly has worked as a journalist for more than 25 years. He has been working as a general reporter at the Newcastle Herald since 2018. In recent years he has reported on subjects including environment, energy, water security, manufacturing and higher education. He has previously covered issues including the health and environmental impacts of uncovered coal wagons in the Hunter Valley, the pollution of legacy of former industrial sites and freedom of information issues.
Matthew Kelly has worked as a journalist for more than 25 years. He has been working as a general reporter at the Newcastle Herald since 2018. In recent years he has reported on subjects including environment, energy, water security, manufacturing and higher education. He has previously covered issues including the health and environmental impacts of uncovered coal wagons in the Hunter Valley, the pollution of legacy of former industrial sites and freedom of information issues.
