Torrens Island Power Station is located on

Torrens Island Torrens Island is an island in the Australian state of South Australia located in the Adelaide metropolitan area in the Port River Estuary about northwest of the Adelaide city centre. Since European settlement of Adelaide in 1836, it has ...

, near

Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest o ...

and is operated by

AGL Energy AGL Energy Ltd () is an Australian listed public company involved in both the generation and retailing of electricity and gas for residential and commercial use. AGL is Australia's largest electricity generator, and the nation's largest carb ...

. It burns

natural gas Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbon d ...

in eight steam turbines to generate up to 1,280 MW of

electricity Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as describe ...

. The gas is supplied via the

SEAGas pipeline The SEA Gas pipeline ''(South East Australia Gas pipeline)'' is a 687 km natural gas pipeline from the Iona Gas Plant near Port Campbell in Victoria (Australia), Victoria to the Pelican Point Power Station at Port Adelaide. It connects Adelai ...

from Victoria, and the

Moomba Adelaide Pipeline System The Moomba Adelaide Pipeline System is a natural gas pipeline delivering gas from the Cooper Basin gas wells near Moomba to Adelaide, with spur pipelines to Angaston and Whyalla. It can also receive gas from Southeastern Queensland through the ...

(MAPS) from Moomba in the Cooper Basin. The station is capable of burning either natural gas or fuel oil. It is the largest power station in South Australia and was formerly the largest single power station user of natural gas in Australia.

Construction

Construction began in 1963 following passing of a government act vesting the land and authorising construction. The 480 MW (4 x 120MW) A Station was completed in 1967, and construction of the 800 MW (4 x 200MW) B Station was completed in 1982.

Gradual shutdown

In December 2014 AGL announced that it intended mothballing the four older units of the A Station indefinitely, having taken them out of service between July and September 2014. This decision was primarily driven by increasing levels of wind and solar generation in the South Australian region of the National Electricity Market displacing fossil fuel generation, particularly higher cost gas-fired generation. AGL reviewed this decision and deferred the planned mothballing in June 2016, following the closure of

Alinta Alinta was an Australian energy infrastructure company. It has grown from a small, Western Australia-based gas distributor and retailer to the largest energy infrastructure company in Australia. It was bought in 2007 by a consortium including ...

Northern Northern may refer to the following: Geography * North, a point in direction * Northern Europe, the northern part or region of Europe * Northern Highland, a region of Wisconsin, United States * Northern Province, Sri Lanka * Northern Range, a r ...

and Playford B coal-fired power stations at

Port Augusta Port Augusta is a small city in South Australia. Formerly a seaport, it is now a road traffic and railway junction city mainly located on the east coast of the Spencer Gulf immediately south of the gulf's head and about north of the state c ...

However, due to the state-wide power outage in September 2016, the system operator AEMO demanded that the Torrens Island power station to be brought back online to prevent another statewide power outage. AGL announced on 7 June 2017 that it intended to permanently mothball two of the turbines in the 50-year-old Torrens A power station, after building a new 210MW power station containing twelve gas reciprocating engines to be known as

Barker Inlet Power Station Barker Inlet Power Station is a power station in South Australia. It was announced on 7 June 2017 by AGL Energy to replace part of its ageing Torrens Island Power Station and was built alongside the existing station on Torrens Island in the north ...

adjacent to the Torrens Island site. The first two units (2 and 4) would be mothballed from 1 July 2019, with the remaining two units (1 and 3) planned to be mothballed after winter 2020 and winter 2021. AGL announced a delay in the closure schedule in July 2019, with Units 2 and 4 rescheduled to close in September 2020, and Units 1 and 3 to close in September 2021 and September 2022. On 7 July 2021, AGL announced plans to also mothball unit B1 in October 2021. It will be able to be recalled on 6 months lead time. At the same time, AGL announced construction of a 250MW grid battery on the Torrens Island site. On 24 November 2022, AGL announced that it would bring forward full closure, and Torrens Island B would be retired on 30 June 2026.

References

Natural gas-fired power stations in South Australia Buildings and structures in Adelaide History of Port Adelaide Buildings and structures completed in 1967 {{SouthAustralia-struct-stub

Construction

Gradual shutdown

See also

References