Recently compiled data revealed that Eraring Power Station increased electricity output by over 17% for the 2024 financial year. This represented an increase of 2.1 TWh to a total of 14 TWh – the highest annual output at Eraring since 2019.
To put this into context, total electricity demand in NSW in the 2024 financial year was 67 TWh, meaning Eraring met 21% of the state’s power needs. That’s not bad for a 40-year-old asset.
Eraring was responding to government policy introduced in December 2022 designed to increase electricity output and help put downwards pressure on prices. The Federal Government’s Energy Price Relief Plan was a response to significant supply and price pressures felt in global energy markets following the war in Ukraine and included a cap on the price of coal until June 2024.
In addition, the plant played an important role in responding to the daily and seasonal variability in renewables output, helping underpin reliable supply for customers under all scenarios.
Eraring’s ability to flex its output in this way is no small feat and is a credit to our team onsite who carry out a rigorous maintenance regime each year to keep the power station in the best possible condition. The plant’s ongoing contribution to the market is also dependent on continued support from local coal suppliers.
Shoulder season is maintenance season
Most years we perform a scheduled maintenance outage on one of the power station’s four generating units.
Typically performed during the spring or autumn shoulder seasons when electricity demand tends to be lower, these major maintenance outages help ensure safe, flexible and reliable operations. Performing them in the shoulder season also ensures all generating units are available during the summer and winter peak periods – when Aussies are using more energy.
What happens during a maintenance outage?
During a scheduled maintenance outage, the Eraring team conducts a series of inspections and repairs to a generating unit’s boiler, turbine, turbine auxiliary, valve, electrical and circulating water systems to ensure the unit continues to meet its safety and regulatory requirements.
The workforce at Eraring swells during these outages, with an additional 700 people from various departments and contracting firms on site at the peak of the works. More than 50 different suppliers providing skills including welders, boilermakers and electricians, many from the Hunter and Lake Macquarie area, support the outage work.
Shift teams tend to work day and night, six days a week to turn around the safest and quickest overhaul possible. Over a thousand ton of scaffold will be erected for access and works, four turbine rotors and an 80-ton generator rotor will be removed for inspection and overhaul, hundreds of valves will be inspected and overhauled while extensive pressure welding and mechanical works will be carried out on the unit’s boiler.
The next scheduled maintenance outage will be performed on Eraring Unit 3 starting in late August and is targeted for completion in November 2024. Each major maintenance outage represents capital expenditure of $70 – $80m, with further unit maintenance at Eraring scheduled for 2025 and 2026, so we can keep the plant operating safely and reliably.
Preparing for Eraring’s retirement
Another area we spend considerable time planning for is the eventual closure of coal generation operations at Eraring, scheduled for August 2027.
Our biggest priority has been delivering an extensive program to support Eraring’s workforce.
Known as Future Directions, the program is led by an experienced team based on site and focuses on three key pillars:
- Communication & change – ensuring our people are listened to, respected, supported and valued via ongoing communication and consultation.
- Future capabilities – supporting individuals to achieve their future career and life choice goals.
- Health & well-being – keeping health and well-being front of mind, and to ensure our workforce transition plans are phased & transparent.
While Future Directions offers a host of career information and wellbeing resources, the program’s focus through its early phase has been on developing Individual Support Plans. These individual plans reflect the unique circumstances of every employee – some are early in their careers, while others are nearing retirement age. Some want to continue working in energy, while others are looking for a career change.
The individual plans detail an employee’s current skills and qualifications, their future career ambitions, opportunities for development, re-training, re-skilling and further education. We’ve already had employees complete a wide range of courses including property development, psychology, business administration, photography and welding to name a few.
Today, 96% of the Eraring team have an active support plan in place, with 288 training courses completed and funded by Origin. We hold twice yearly check-ins with our people, to see how their plan is going and make changes if appropriate – overwhelmingly, participating employees support the program.
We’re in the early stages of sharing details of our Future Directions program with Eraring’s suppliers, to help them in the development of their own plans to support their workforces through the transition to closure.
What’s next for the Eraring site?
When we eventually reach the end of coal power generation at Eraring, that doesn’t spell the end of operations at the site.
Eraring is a highly valuable energy site, with good transmission connections to the main grid and the demand centres of the Hunter and Sydney.
We’ve already approved construction of a large-scale battery project on the site of Eraring, with phase one of that project currently under construction. Total investment in the Eraring battery project is $1 billion, delivering a combined energy storage of over 2 GWh. This will enable us to help keep the grid stable and support more variable renewable energy coming into the system.
Want to learn more?
To keep up-to-date with what’s happening at Australia’s largest power station, visit our dedicated Eraring Power Station web page.
