Reeves Plains Power Station is a proposal from

Alinta Energy Alinta Energy is an Australian electricity generating and gas retailing private company owned by Hong Kong–based Chow Tai Fook Enterprises (CTFE). The sale for $4 billion was approved by Treasurer Scott Morrison in 2017. Alinta Energy has an ...

to build a gas-fired power station at Reeves Plains between

Gawler Gawler, established in 1839, is the oldest country town in the state of South Australia. It was named after the second Governor (British Vice-Regal representative) of the colony of South Australia, George Gawler. It is about north of the st ...

and Mallala in

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, which in ...

. The proposed site borders both the Moomba-Adelaide gas pipe and an electricity transmission line. The power station is proposed to use six

gas turbine A gas turbine or gas turbine engine is a type of Internal combustion engine#Continuous combustion, continuous flow internal combustion engine. The main parts common to all gas turbine engines form the power-producing part (known as the gas gene ...

s to produce up to of electricity. It is expected to be operated as a peaking plant rather than running full time. The primary source of fuel will be the gas pipeline, however the plant will also be able to operate on

diesel Diesel may refer to: * Diesel engine, an internal combustion engine where ignition is caused by compression * Diesel fuel, a liquid fuel used in diesel engines * Diesel locomotive, a railway locomotive in which the prime mover is a diesel engine ...

fuel, and will have diesel storage on site. Stage 1 is expected to only be two or three of the turbines, generating 100 to 150 MW of electricity. The power station was originally expected to take 12 months to build, and be commissioned in January 2019. An extension of time request granted an additional 12 months in February 2019, but as of November 2019, the Alinta board had not yet decided to make the investment. Reevesplains2020power

History

Alinta Energy had previously operated the

coal-fired power station A coal-fired power station or coal power plant is a thermal power station which burns coal to generate electricity. Worldwide there are about 2,500 coal-fired power stations, on average capable of generating a gigawatt each. They generate ...

s in South Australia known as Northern Power Station and the older Playford A and

Playford B Power Station Playford B Power Station was located at Port Paterson, South Australia about south of the city centre of Port Augusta. It was coal powered with four 60 MW steam turbines that generated a total of 240 MW of electricity. Playford B received coal ...

s, all near

Port Augusta Port Augusta (''Goordnada'' in the revived indigenous Barngarla language) is a coastal city in South Australia about by road from the state capital, Adelaide. Most of the city is on the eastern shores of Spencer Gulf, immediately south of the ...

. It closed the last of these power stations in 2016, and since then had not been involved in generating electricity in South Australia. Both Alinta and the state government were widely criticised for closing the coal power stations when the state experienced a major blackout during a storm in September 2016. Ten years earlier, in March 2007, Flinders Power (now owned by Alinta Energy, and was the operating subsidiary for the Port Augusta power stations) had proposed to spend to build a 450MW gas-fired power station at Redbanks only one kilometre further north than the Reeves Plains proposal. However the Redbanks power station was never built. The development application for Reeves Plains was submitted on 12 October 2017 and opened for public comment on 8 November the same year. It received approval from

John Rau John Robert Rau SC (born 20 March 1959) is an Australian barrister and politician. He was the 12th Deputy Premier of South Australia from 2011 to 2018 and 48th Attorney-General of South Australia from 2010 to 2018 for the South Australian Bra ...

, the Minister for Planning on 16 February 2018, the last day the government could make major decisions before the state election. Alinta had not yet completed its internal investment case and received approval from its board to proceed to construction. In September 2018, Alinta chief executive Jeff Dimery said that it had failed to get enough support from customers to reduce the investment risk of building the power station. The project was one of 12 projects shortlisted in March 2019 from 66 registrations of interest in the Australian Government's Underwriting New Generation Investments program.

References

Natural gas-fired power stations in South Australia {{SouthAustralia-struct-stub