Return of Queensland’s exploded coal plant delayed another six months

The return to service of the Callide C coal fired power station Queensland, which exploded in dramatic circumstances two years ago, has been delayed by another six months following the collapse of one of its cooling towers, and of its joint owner.

The Queensland state owned utility  CS Energy had originally expected the coal units to return to service in February this year, before announcing delays to April this year, then to September and October, and now into 2024.

The C4 unit caused widespread outages in May, 2021, when the turbine suddenly exploded, an event blamed on the failure of generator protection systems.

The accident-prone facility suffered further woes last October when the cooling tower of the C3 unit partially collapsed, leading to an investigation that concluded both the C3 and the C4 towers needed to be demolished and rebuilt.

CS Energy revealed on Tuesday that the return of service of the Callide C4 unit is now delayed until May and won’t be fully operational until July. The C3 unit is expected to partly return in early January but won’t be fully operational until mid-to late February.

That means that the repaired coal unit will be back online after the new Chinchilla battery, a 100MW/200MWh facility that began construction last year, but which is expected to operating by the end of 2023.

The company is blaming the complexity of the rebuild of the C4 unit – the one that exploded – and the difficulty in demolishing and rebuilding the cooling towers for both the C3 and C4 units.

The situation is further complicated by the placing of joint owner Genuity – formerly known as Intergen – into the hands of administrators earlier this year after the two joint venture partners failed to agree on future funding for the venture.

“The demolition and rebuild of the C3 and C4 cooling towers, and the subsequent recommissioning of the units is a highly complex project, further complicated by our JV partner being in an Administration process,” CS Energy said in a statement on Tuesday.

“It not unusual for generators to adjust their return to service dates for units that are undergoing major maintenance or repairs, depending on issues identified during the process,” it added.

The rebuild of Callide C is expected to cost around $400 million, and many in the industry why the company, and its state government part owners, have even bothered – particularly in light of the state’s newly ambitious targets to reach 80 per cent renewables by 2035.

Acting CEO Andrew Varvari – who has stepped in to fill the departure of former CEO Andrew Bills to SA Power Networks, acknowledged that the performance of the Callide C generating units had not been good enough.

“CS Energy is acutely aware of the importance of reliable generation from coal-fired generators such as the Callide C Power Station, particularly at a time of high gas and coal prices and with reducing coal generation across the energy sector,” Varvari said in a statement.

“We have been working with the Administrators of IG Power (owners of Genuity) to progress the safe and timely return to service of the Callide C units and are doing everything we can to have the units safely back up and running as soon as possible.”