Port Augusta Blows Off Steam Over Northern Power Station

Coal power may be gone from Port Augusta, but it’s certainly not forgotten. Some of that doesn’t involve misty-eyed memories and hasn’t been by choice.

The handling of the closure of Northern Power Station and consequent demolition/remediation has reportedly been slammed by Port Augusta City Council in a submission to a senate inquiry.

While Mayor Sam Johnson may not have gotten the Royal Commission he wanted, last year the Senate agreed to set up an inquiry looking into the rehabilitation of mining and resources projects. After extensions, submissions to the inquiry closed last month.

Port Augusta has plenty of experience in this regard and has put its two-bob’s worth in. The ABC reports among other things, the Council’s submission has accused Alinta Energy subsidiary Flinders Power of failing to protect the local environment following the closure.

The city has experienced high dust levels on a number of occasions, blaming demolition dust, uncovered fly ash being blown across, or fly ash that had been treated with a suppressant that had broken down.

The Mayor also said while announcement of the Hazelwood Power Station closure in Victoria saw the feds jumping in to assist with the transition, his city saw little in the way of help.

Demolition Works Continue

Another part of Northern Power Station came tumbling down late last month when its 47m high, 3,000-tonne steel coal bunker was demolished using explosive charges. Here’s how that event went down (quite literally).

Flinders Power said there were no “concerning dust or weather related issues” during the blast. Also last month, Flinders Power defended its efforts on remediation of the ash storage area.

The most famous (or infamous) part of the plant, the 200m high Northern stack seen in the background of the video, remains on schedule for demolition in July this year.

The 80-metre high Playford B stack at the Augusta Power Stations site was demolished in January.

Forecast: Sunny, With 100% Chance Of Clean Electricity

Looking to the longer term and past this dusty phase, there’s sunnier days with clear, coal emissions-free skies ahead. Taking advantage of Port Augusta’s ample solar energy resources are several large projects in the works:

• The huge Bungala Solar Project near Port Augusta that will consist of around 860,000 solar panels (currently under construction).
• SolarReserve’s Aurora solar thermal power station – 150MW plant + 1,100MWh molten salt energy storage system.
• DP Energy’s Port Augusta Renewable Energy Park, the PV aspect of which will boast up to 1,600,000 solar panels.

I mentioned late last week there didn’t seem to be much happening recently on the latter two, but Sam Johnson’s Facebook profile indicated the Port Augusta Renewable Energy Park development is looking to kick off later this year and the Aurora folks are inviting people to drop by their office to check out the project over the coming days.