Yallourn W power station

Yallourn W power station is owned by EnergyAustralia (formerly known as TRUenergy), a subsidiary of CLP. The power station is supplied with coal from the Yallourn mine. In mid-2012 the collapse of a river diversion embankment resulted in the mine pit being flooded, conveyor belts damaged and the power station being offline for most of June. (For full details see the Yallourn mine article.)

The 1480 megawatt power station is located near Yallourn West and, in 2010, was estimated to have emitted 15 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (Mt CO2e). EnergyAustralia estimates that the power station emits, on an as sent out basis, 1.4 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilowatt hour.

EnergyAustralia stated in a late-2012 business review that the power station benefited from a "fixed low cost fuel source" and that the power station was "well positioned to benefit from a rising wholesale gas price market, despite the introduction of the carbon tax from 1 July 2012."

In October 2012 EnergyAustralia announced, as part of its lobbying against retaining the Renewable Energy Target in its current form, that it would idle one 360 megawatt unit at the power station due to the impact of the carbon price "together with weak wholesale electricity prices and falling electricity demand." The company argued that the Renewable Energy Target should be revised to reduce the amount of new wind and solar power supplied to the grid. However, in mid-January, without any announcement or significant media coverage, the unit was restarted to cater for the increased summer load.

Background on the power station
The power station comprises two 360 megawatt generating units and 2 x 380 megawatt units which were commissioned between 1974 and 1982. (Another report from 2003 lists the units as being two 350 generating units commissioned between 1973 and 1975 and two 375 megawatt units commissioned between 1981 and 1982 with an overall capacity of 1450 megawatts. It was also assessed as the second lowest cost producer in Victoria and with a "sent out thermal efficiency" of approximately 28%.)

TRUenergy flags willingness to close ... if it gets the right price
In mid-2010 TRUenergy signalled that, while they believed that an emissions trading scheme was the remained the best way to reduce greenhouse gases, they were prepared to phase out the plant if they could negotiate an appropriate amount of direct compensation from the then Labor Victorian government and/or the federal government. "Given there is unlikely to be an emissions trading scheme in the near term, direct action (in the form of compensation for cutting pollution) is certainly something that will reduce emissions," TRUenergy spokesman Carl Kitchen told The Age. However, iIn September 2012 the federal Minister for Resources and Energy, Martin Ferguson, announced that plans for the contract for closure program had been scrapped. In a media release Ferguson stated that "the Government could not be satisfied that entering into such arrangements would achieve value for money against the Contract for Closure Program objectives." He stated that regional adjustment funding which had been pledged to area affected by closure under the program would remain available to areas affected by the carbon price.

Handouts from carbon tax package
EnergyAustralia received $257,498,933.37 of the $1 billion cash payments given out in 2011/12 to the operators of the most polluting coal-fired power stations. The cash was paid from the Energy Security Fund which was established as a part of the carbon tax legislation passed in 2011.

The $1 billion in payments were made before the carbon price was introduced, with no further payments scheduled for the financial year 2013.

However, for the 2014 and 2015 financial years EnergyAustralia estimates that it will receive 10.7 million free carbon units which at $24.20 and $25.40 each would be valued at $259.4 million and $272.3 million respectively.

From July 2015 it is planned that an emissions trading scheme will commence with the the carbon price determined by the market. The initial plan of having a fixed floor of $15 per tonne from July 2015 was dropped after lobbying from power generators and instead the Australian scheme linked to the European Union scheme. Energy Australia reported that as a result of the watering down of the scheme "Australian carbon prices from July 2015 onwards are expected to be somewhat lower than under the original scheme." EnergyAustralia described the changes as "positive" for it.

Proposed gas-fired plant shelved
In December 2012 EnergyAustralia announced that it had shelved plans for a 1000 megawatt gas-fired power station in Victoria's Latrobe Valley. EnergyAustralia's head of markets, Mark Collette, told The Australian that the power station would not be needed until much later this decade. "We are seeing further deterioration in the energy market and wholesale prices, and we don't expect conditions to improve in the foreseeable future," he said. The proposed power station was to have been built on the site of the existing Yallourn power station. Earlier in 2012 the company had scaled the size of the plant back to potentially 600 megawatts. However, the continued decline in demand undercut the need for the plant.

Fire dust fire
In early January 2013, a small fire broke out at the power station believed to be as a result of high temperatures causing coal dust to ignite. The fire was extinguished within half an hour.

National Pollutant Inventory Data
The Australian's Government's National Pollutant Inventory lists emissions from the Yallourn power station for 2010/2011 as being:

See Yallourn W power station - National Pollutant Inventory data for 2008/2009

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