How electricity is made

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How electricity is made

Coal is delivered to the station by conveyor belt from the adjacent Meandu Mine. This coal is fed via transfer towers to the boiler bunkers. The quantities of coal and air in the boilers are carefully controlled in order to provide stable combustion in the furnace.
As the coal burns, energy is released and this is used to heat water in the boiler. Each one of Tarong Power Station's four boilers is as high as an eight story building. The walls of the boilers are lined with steel tubes inside which boiling water changes to steam.

Inside the furnace, temperatures reach almost 1500 degrees centigrade, with each boiler changing 285 kilograms of water into steam every second.
Waste gases created in this process pass through the electrostatic precipitator which removes dust and grit and the gases are then discharged into the chimney flue. The "stack" (as Tarong Power Station's single chimney is known) is made up of four flues, one for each boiler.
Steam leaving the steam drum is superheated and fed, under pressure, through steel tubes to the steam turbine.
The turbine drives the generator that produces electricity.
The electricity is converted to a higher voltage through a step-up transformer enabling travel along the high voltage transmission network (managed by Powerlink).
The station has two cooling towers which emit fog-like clouds of water vapour. The shape of the cooling towers causes a natural updraft that draws air into the base. The flow of air in the towers cools the hot water by evaporating as it falls from the upper hot pond to the lower cold pond. The cool water is then pumped back to the condensers and the process begins again.

Water used at the station is supplied from the purpose-built Boondooma Dam. Recycling and water efficiency programs ensure maximum efficiency to sustain this valuable resource. In addition, a Reverse Osmosis Plant treats cooling tower blowdown water to produce up to 500 ML of potable water per annum to supply Tarong and Tarong North Power Stations and Menadu Mine.