Tasmania’s second-largest hydropower station is generating electricity again after one of Hydro Tasmania’s largest planned outages in recent years, which included repainting the inside of its pipeline.
Hydro Tasmania announced that Poatina Power Station, which sits in an artificial cavern 150m underground, had been returned to service.
During the outage, crews started recoating the inside of the 1.8km Poatina penstock and 5.6km headrace tunnel with a protective paint designed to stop the metal pipeline corroding.
The penstock and tunnel carry water from Yingina/Great Lake down the face of the Great Western Tiers to the station.
A robot was used to blast off the old paint before staff used large spray-painting hoses to apply the new coating.
Poatina site manager Julian Quinn said the station generated around 10% of Tasmania’s total generation capacity.
“During this outage we’ve completed major electrical upgrades and progressed the refurbishment of a 60-year-old generating unit,” he said.
“This will help ensure the station remains reliable for decades to come.”
The station has six Pelton turbines, each able to generate 60 megawatts. Five were commissioned in the 1960s and the sixth in the 1970s.
On the unit being refurbished, Quinn said ageing equipment had been replaced.
“The original electrical control systems were around 60 years old, so we’ve replaced those with modern technology that is better suited to the needs of today’s electricity system,” he said.
“We’ve also replaced key turbine components, including the Pelton runner and nozzles that direct water onto the turbine and carried out significant maintenance work to prepare the machine for many more years of operation.”
The work is part of Hydro Tasmania’s $200m investment to upgrade all the turbines at Poatina, with one turbine upgrade completed earlier this year.
Quinn said the project was part of a rolling schedule of upgrades and maintenance across Hydro Tasmania’s dams and power stations.
“The work we’re doing now is about making sure these units continue generating renewable energy for Tasmanians well into the future,” he said.
Last month, fire gutted Hydro Tasmania’s Tungatinah Power Station near Tarraleah, which generated close to 5% of the state’s power. Fire investigators found the blaze was accidental.
Refurbishment of the second generating unit will continue while the station is running and is expected to be finished in early 2027.
The pipeline work is being done in two stages to fit around irrigation seasons, with the second stage due to start in April.
