Liddell Power Station, New South Wales

Liddell Power Station is located at Lake Liddell near Muswellbrook, in the Hunter Valley, New South Wales, Australia. It is coal powered with four steam driven turbo generators with a combined capacity of 2,000 MW of electricity.

The first generator was completed in 1971, two more in 1972, and the fourth in 1973.

Much of the coal is supplied by overland conveyors from mines it shares with the nearby Bayswater Power Station.

Liddell was the first major power station in NSW to be built inland, using fresh water for cooling instead of the more abundant salt water used in coastal power stations. To accommodate this, Lake Liddell was expanded to provide more water.

In addition to the coal power station, Liddell runs two 25 MW oil-fired gas turbinescite web
url=http://www.macgen.com.au/About_us/AnnualReport05/MG%20SCI%2005-06.pdf
title=Statement of Corporate Intent 2005/2006
publisher=Macquarie Generation
date=2005-12-13
accessdate=2006-08-05] and a 0.85 MW mini-hydroelectric generator [cite web
url=http://www.macgen.com.au/news/2000%20news/news_000207.htm
title=News Release - 7 February 2000
publisher=Macquarie Generation
accessdate=2006-08-05] . It is also "licensed to co-fire plant biomass and coal to produce electricity", which essentially means it can use sawdust and wood shavings from the nearby timber industry as a portion of its fuel, replacing up to 5% of its coal requirements [cite web
url=http://www.macgen.com.au/about_us/renewables_%20intro.htm
title=Renewable energy
publisher=Macquarie Generation
accessdate=2006-08-05] [cite web
url=http://www.macgen.com.au/environment/enviro_biomass.htm
title=Biomass Co-firing
publisher=Macquarie Generation
accessdate=2006-08-05] . In practice, however, biomass accounts for only about 0.5% of Liddell's output.

A project is underway at Liddell to replace some of the station's boiler feed-water by hot water from a solar thermal array [cite web
url=http://www.macgen.com.au/News/2006News/LiddellSolarProjectUpdate.aspx
title=Liddell Solar Project Update
publisher=Macquarie Generation
accessdate=2007-03-17] . The project is currently at a second-stage prototype but has not yet been connected to the power station (Mar 2007).

References

External links

* [http://www.macgen.com.au/about_us/liddell.htm Macquarie Generation] page on Liddell
* [http://www.solarpaces.org/CLFR_COAL.HTM Proposed 38 MW solar thermal "coal saver" plant at Liddell]
* http://peter.neal.id.au/blog/10/webguide-1-nsw-power-stations