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So far as the Port Augusta stations are concerned:
Playford B was pretty much stuffed. Hadn't reached full output for a very long time, I can't actually remember the last time it did but it would be sometime last decade, and for the past few years wasn't running at all (literally not at all). Hardly surprising for a plant built in 1960 with a steam range design and run extremely hard until Northern came online (1985) and still used quite a bit after that. Nominal capacity was 240 MW but in the latter years it very rarely exceeded about 150 MW in practice.
Northern was in pretty good shape though so far as I'm aware. Commissioned 1985 and no major problems although at a guess it was coming up for some significant maintenance (that's just a guess as the owners didn't go into such details publicly). Capacity was 540 MW and could go a bit higher under the right conditions.
The first plant, Playford A, closed a long time ago (1989) after 35 years of mostly base load operation. The three small 30 MW units and boilers half that size just weren't economic at that point. Too much work to maintain 3 turbines / generators and 6 boilers to produce 90 MW when compared to modern plant that is much larger and more fuel efficient too.
Prior to Playford A (1954) most power in SA was generated at Osborne (Adelaide) apart from relatively small amounts at Port Lincoln. Supplies of imported (from NSW) coal were extremely unreliable as had also been the case in Victoria and this ultimately prompted the move to use locally mined coal in SA and construction of the Port Augusta power stations to use it.
Upon completion of Playford B the two stations at Port Augusta accounted for half SA's generating capacity and around three quarters of power actually generated since they were the priority source. Next came Torrens Island, built for oil but converted to gas two years after opening.
By the early 1980's SA was somewhat desperate to move away from gas as a fuel and plenty of options were examined. Numerous sites for new coal-fired plant were investigated as was the possibility of converting Torrens Island to coal as WA had done at Kwinana. They even had a pretty hard look around the state to see if they could do something, anything at all, with hydro since the need to move away from gas as a matter of urgency was clearly understood.
Ultimately building Northern won out since it could generate about 40% of SA's total annual electricity consumption at the time and with Playford B remaining in service this would halve the state's use of gas for power generation in one fell swoop. At that time the added generating capacity was a bonus which helped tip the balance in favour of building Northern rather than converting Torrens Island but the real objective was to do something, anything that worked, to cut reliance on gas and to do it ASAP.
ETSA's future planning at that time was to in due course build more coal-fired capacity plus a pumped hydro scheme thus moving further away from reliance on gas. Both aspects were investigated in some detail and suitable sites identified but it never went ahead since the industry changes happened in the meantime.
Playford B was pretty much stuffed. Hadn't reached full output for a very long time, I can't actually remember the last time it did but it would be sometime last decade, and for the past few years wasn't running at all (literally not at all). Hardly surprising for a plant built in 1960 with a steam range design and run extremely hard until Northern came online (1985) and still used quite a bit after that. Nominal capacity was 240 MW but in the latter years it very rarely exceeded about 150 MW in practice.
Northern was in pretty good shape though so far as I'm aware. Commissioned 1985 and no major problems although at a guess it was coming up for some significant maintenance (that's just a guess as the owners didn't go into such details publicly). Capacity was 540 MW and could go a bit higher under the right conditions.
The first plant, Playford A, closed a long time ago (1989) after 35 years of mostly base load operation. The three small 30 MW units and boilers half that size just weren't economic at that point. Too much work to maintain 3 turbines / generators and 6 boilers to produce 90 MW when compared to modern plant that is much larger and more fuel efficient too.
Prior to Playford A (1954) most power in SA was generated at Osborne (Adelaide) apart from relatively small amounts at Port Lincoln. Supplies of imported (from NSW) coal were extremely unreliable as had also been the case in Victoria and this ultimately prompted the move to use locally mined coal in SA and construction of the Port Augusta power stations to use it.
Upon completion of Playford B the two stations at Port Augusta accounted for half SA's generating capacity and around three quarters of power actually generated since they were the priority source. Next came Torrens Island, built for oil but converted to gas two years after opening.
By the early 1980's SA was somewhat desperate to move away from gas as a fuel and plenty of options were examined. Numerous sites for new coal-fired plant were investigated as was the possibility of converting Torrens Island to coal as WA had done at Kwinana. They even had a pretty hard look around the state to see if they could do something, anything at all, with hydro since the need to move away from gas as a matter of urgency was clearly understood.
Ultimately building Northern won out since it could generate about 40% of SA's total annual electricity consumption at the time and with Playford B remaining in service this would halve the state's use of gas for power generation in one fell swoop. At that time the added generating capacity was a bonus which helped tip the balance in favour of building Northern rather than converting Torrens Island but the real objective was to do something, anything that worked, to cut reliance on gas and to do it ASAP.
ETSA's future planning at that time was to in due course build more coal-fired capacity plus a pumped hydro scheme thus moving further away from reliance on gas. Both aspects were investigated in some detail and suitable sites identified but it never went ahead since the industry changes happened in the meantime.