by Smurfs1976 » Sun 02 Nov 2014, 04:43:36
There's also the impact on the electricity industry.
Stanwell has announced that Swanbank E power station, a 385MW combined cycle (CCGT) gas-fired plant located in Queensland, is to be mothballed soon.
Stanwell has a number of other plants, primarily coal-fired, which will increase output to offset the mothballing of Swanbank E.
Stanwell's other significant gas-fired plant, Mica Creek, will continue to operate business as usual noting that this plant is not connected to the main grid, the 302MW plant (with 12 small generating units) being literally the sole source of supply to the Mt Isa region (including the mines) and not part of the main Australian grid.
Meanwhile Hydro Tasmania, which also operates a 208MW gas-fired CCGT plant, has already ceased baseload operation of this facility during the cooler 6 months of the year when the combination of gas and electricity pricing makes it uneconomic. They have stated publicly that they are uncertain to what extent the plant will operate after about 2017, the inference being that there's at least some chance of a mothballing or use as backup plant only.
That is the only baseload fossil fuel plant operated by Hydro, although they do have 4 small open cycle gas turbines used occasionally as backup plant. The rest of their operations are primarily hydro and also two large wind farms, the former gas-fired steam plant having been decommissioned (permanently) a few years ago.
To the extent that Hydro cuts total production via reduced (or no) operation of the CCGT plant, they will simply be handing market share to someone else. Hydro's other plants, that is the hydro and wind operations, are fully utilised with no ability to increase output without major investment.
So that's two electricity companies, Stanwell and Hydro Tasmania, basically getting out of baseload generation for the main grid using gas.
