Hazelwood Power Station

The Hazelwood Power Station is a decommissioned brown coal-fuelled thermal power station located in the Latrobe Valley of Victoria, Australia. Built between 1964 and 1971, the 1,600 megawatt capacity power station was made up of eight 200MW units, and supplied up to 25% of Victoria's base load electricity and more than 5% of Australia's total electricity demand. It was a 'subcritical' pulverized coal-fired boiler. The station was listed as the least carbon efficient power station in the OECD in a 2005 report by WWF Australia, making it one of the most polluting power stations in the world. At 1.56 tonnes of CO2 for each megawatt hour of electricity, it was 50 percent more polluting than the average black coal power station in NSW or Queensland. Hazelwood emitted 14% of Victoria’s annual greenhouse gas emissions and 3% of Australia's greenhouse gas emissions.International Power plc purchased Hazelwood Power Station and the adjoining mine from the Victorian Government in 1996 with an expected 40-year life. In 2005 the Bracks Labor Government approved an environmental effects statement (EES) that allowed Hazelwood to relocate a road and a section of the Morwell river to allow access to an additional 43 million tonnes of coal in addition to that allowed under the mining licence boundaries set at the time of privatisation. This was estimated to provide sufficient coal for the plant to operate to at least 2030 (prior to decommissioning plans). The EES also capped its expected total greenhouse output at 445 million tonnes of carbon dioxide over its life, after which Hazelwood may have been made to cease operation.