The Tarraleah hydropower scheme has generated clean energy for Tasmania for more than 80 years, and Hydro Tasmania says it is now well advanced on the first stage of activity to upgrade the scheme.
Hydro Tasmania CEO Ian Brooksbank said Tarraleah was an incredible piece of engineering and an icon of the Central Highlands.
Related article: Tarraleah hydro scheme upgrade powers ahead
“Our vision for Tarraleah is to redevelop the scheme to deliver the benefits that the future energy market will need and generate up to 250 jobs during peak construction,” Brooksbank said.
“The redevelopment would boost capacity, better support the growth of wind and solar through faster, more flexible operation and generate around 30% more energy from the same water.”
Hydro Tasmania is now getting on with construction works at Lake King William and Mossy Marsh Dam that support a potential new scheme and station in the future.
Onsite at Lake King William this week to see progress first hand, Brooksbank said it was fantastic to see work well underway for progressing the vision for Tarraleah into action.
“The network of canals that have fed water from Lake King William to the station for decades will need to be replaced in future.
“What is happening now are important upgrade works to construct a brand new water intake and connecting tunnel to meet up with a future new water conveyance. Improvements to the dam at Mossy Marsh are largely completed and upgrading the local access road is also underway.
“There’s almost 100 full-time equivalent roles working on these upgrades across our people, our specialist consulting firm Entura and our contractors—that’s great news for the region and there’s more to come as we progress our plans.”
Related article: Spotlight On: Hydro Tasmania CEO Ian Brooksbank
Well-known Tasmanian civil construction company Hazell Bros was awarded the contracts for the first tranche of upgrade works projects.
These works, together with activity to assess the viability of building a brand new scheme and power station, represents a $123 million investment towards a clean energy future, with up to $65 million of that committed by the federal government.
