A unit at the troubled Callide coal fired generator has been returned to service, just days after it tripped and was forced offline by the severe thunderstorms that swept through south-east Queensland earlier this week.
The Callide coal plant has a chequered recent history, with numerous outages and poor reliability, marked by major events that included an explosion at the C4 unit in 2021 that took it out of action for several years, and another major event at its C3 unit in April this year that took it out of action for several months.
Owner CS Energy said on Thursday that the C4 unit had been tripped on Sunday evening because of the impact of a severe thunderstorm and a lightning strike at the nearby Calvale switchyard. It was brought back on line on Wednesday evening.
Another major thunderstorm on Tuesday caused damage to the roof of the turbine hall at the B2 unit, although that was only out of service for several hours.
The C3 unit has been out of action since August as part of the “largest planned overhaul in the station’s history”, according to CS Energy CEO Brian Gillespie.
“These are huge and complex power stations with many interconnected systems, so it is critical that all relevant safety checks are carried out before they are returned to service,” Gillespie said in a statement.
“To everyone at Callide – thank you for your quiet and determined professionalism to safely bring Unit C4 and Unit B2 back online in the middle of our planned overhaul at Unit C3.”
The C3 overhaul will cost $80 million, funded by the new LNP government’s $1.5 billion Electricity Maintenance Guarantee, a key part of its plan to slow down the roll out of large scale renewables and to try and keep coal fired power stations running “for decades” to come.
CS Energy says it expects the C3 overhaul to be complete in mid-November “so that it is ready for the summer peak demand period.”
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