Hazelwood Power Station, Victoria

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**Hazelwood Power Station**
(Image Courtesy Environment Australia)
Location	Latrobe Valley, Victoria
Owner	International Power Hazelwood
Status	Baseload
Fuel	Brown Coal
Technology	Steam Turbine
Turbines	8
Max Capacity	1,600 MW
Commissioned	1964

Hazelwood power station, in the Latrobe Valley, Victoria, is a thermal brown coal station built between 1964 and 1971. The power station and associated mine were privatised by the Kennett government in 1996. It was sold for $2.35 billion, and it operates as 'International Power Hazelwood' (IPRH), an Australian public company, which is owned by UK company International Power (91.8% share) and the Commonwealth Bank Group (the remaining 8.2%). The head office is near Morwell, 150 kilometres east of Melbourne. Prior to January 2003, International Power Hazelwood was known as Hazelwood Power.

Hazelwood relies on brown coal deposits from nearby open cut mines to produce its nominal capacity of 1,600 megawatts (1,470 net), supplying up to 25 % of Victoria's base load electricity.

According to a WWF report, Hazelwood is the dirtiest power station in Australia and the most polluting power station in the industrialised world (based on CO₂ per megawatt hour sent out).^[1]^[2] With a 60% increase in power generation since 1996, it now produces nearly 17.0 million tonnes of carbon dioxide each year, which is over 5 % of Australia's total carbon dioxide emissions. Hazelwood produces 9 % of Australia's total CO₂ from electricity generation, and produces more greenhouse pollution than Victoria's entire fleet of 3.6 million cars.^[3]

The power station produced 1.55 tonnes of CO₂ per megawatt-hour of electricity generated in 2004, not 1.58 as made public by some environment groups. This is a significant reduction of 6.6% from the 1996 levels of 1.66 Mt/TWh, when it was privatised, but still higher than the 1.22 to 1.43 tonnes typical of modern brown coal stations, 0.86 tonnes for black coal stations and 0.45 tonnes for gas stations. IPRH has firm plans to further reduce this CO₂ intensity further in the coming years.

In 2003, 17.2 million tonnes of coal was excavated by International Power Hazelwood for use by the plant which generated 12,000 gigawatt-hours. The company supplied a further 1.6 tonnes of coals to Energy Brix Australia. 1.14 megalitres of water were used per gigawatt hour— or approximately 37.5 megalitres per day which is supplied by an artificial lake built for this purpose in the 1960's which is named Hazelwood Pondage, situated less than 2 hours from Melbourne. The business allows public access for sailing, boating and other recreational water sports, a well kept secret is that cichlids and other tropical fish that were released into the lake by the public have established populations, these include Convict cichlids (Cryptoheros nigrofasciatus) and the African cichlid spotted tilapia (Tilapia mariae). Other fish include carp, goldfish (Carassius auratus), Gambusia (Gambusia holbrooki), and the native short-finned eel (Anguilla australis) and Australian smelt (Retropinna semoni).

Other power stations in the Latrobe Valley are the brown coal-fired Yallourn and Loy Yang power stations, and Jeeralang gas power station. 97% of Victoria's electricity supply is from brown coal, and Latrobe Valley contains 89% of Australia's brown coal reserves. Australia is the world's second-largest emitter per capita of greenhouse gases, and, whilst on track to meet its Kyoto comittments, is not intending to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. Electricity generation is the largest contributor to greenhouse gases in Australia, followed by agriculture. The Australian government is a firm supporter of technology-based solutions to greenhouse gas emissions rather than the punitive regime imposed by Kyoto-style caps and targets.

1 2005 EES Approvals
2 See also
3 External links
4 References

[edit] 2005 EES Approvals

On 6 September 2005, the Victorian Government approved an Environmental Effects Statement confirming Hazelwood's mining lease, so it may move infrastructure to access coal it purchased in 1996. This agreement will ensure power generation continues until at least 2030, and allows access to 43 million tonnes of brown coal deposits in a realignment of Hazelwood's mining licence boundaries. Hazelwood returns over 160 million tonnes of coal to the State Government as part of the agreement.

The agreement requires Hazelwood to reduce its estimated emissions by 34 million tonnes and caps its total greenhouse output at 445 million tonnes of carbon dioxide over its life, after which point it may be made to cease operation. However credits for investment in renewable energy and low emission technology will allow the business to operate within the cap and extend its life. Before privatisation, the plant had been originally slated by the State Electricity Commission to be decommissioned by 2005. Privatisation resulted in new capital investment; some $400 million has been invested in Hazelwood since 1996 to ensure low-cost electricity to Victoria and environmental improvements such as the completion of an $85 million project to reduce dust emissions by 80%.

Hazelwood's West Field development involves realigning the Strzelecki Highway, taking over four kilometres of the Morwell River out of an old concrete pipe and into a natural riverine setting, and acquiring privately owned land. Many green groups, including Environment Victoria, Greenpeace and Australian Conservation Foundation opposed the development approvals, while business groups such as MCA, VECCI, AIG and IPA have welcomed the Government's decision. The decision secures over 800 jobs in Victoria's Latrobe Valley, underpins the local economy and reinforces Victoria's natural low-cost electricity advantage over the rest of Australia.

The Australian Conservation Foundation have put the "expansion" in context by comparing it to Victoria's five-star energy efficient homes standard, which is expected to save 200,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases per annum. The ACF reason that Hazelwood's operations cancel out that benefit every four days. ACF Executive director Don Henry has said he would follow formal objections with legal action to prevent the grant of "new" coal to IPRH. The reality is that most of the West Field coal reserves were allocated to Hazelwood in 1996 in the privatisation process.

Environment Victoria have pushed for alternative baseload generation through: biomass energy, wave energy, geothermal energy, new combined cycle gas fired generation plants, new cogeneration facilities, or increased imports of baseload electricity from interstate. In January 2005, the Clean Energy Future Group together with Environment Victoria released the report Toward Victoria's Clean Energy Future, a plan to cut Victoria's Greenhouse gas emissions from electricity by 2010. It largely focused on cleaner alternatives to Hazelwood, and warned that continued support of coal-fired power development would lock the State into CO₂ emissions that would dwarf any current proposed measures for reducing emissions.

Greenpeace has pushed for a target of 20 % clean energy for Victoria by 2020, allowing Hazelwood to be retired, and to invigorate the Latrobe Valley as a clean energy hub.