Poatina Power Station

Miena Rockfill Dam
Location of the Miena Rockfill Dam in Tasmania
Country	Australia
Location	Central Highlands Tasmania
Coordinates
Purpose	Power
Status	Operational
Opening date	1967 (1967)
Owner(s)	Hydro Tasmania
Dam and spillways
Type of dam	Embankment dam
Impounds	Shannon River
Height	28 metres (92 ft)
Length	1,136 metres (3,727 ft)
Dam volume	481 thousand cubic metres (17.0×10^6 cu ft)
Spillways	1
Spillway type	Controlled
Spillway capacity	58 cubic metres per second (2,000 cu ft/s)
Reservoir
Creates	Great Lake
Total capacity	3,156,640 megalitres (111,476×10^6 cu ft)
Catchment area	399 square kilometres (154 sq mi)
Surface area	1,761.2 hectares (4,352 acres)
Power station
Name	Poatina Power Station
Coordinates
Operator(s)	Hydro Tasmania
Commission date	1966 (1966); 1977 (1977); 2008 (2008); 2010 (2010)
Type	Conventional
Hydraulic head	758 metres (2,487 ft)
Turbines	5 x 51.6 MW (69,200 hp) Andritz Pelton-type turbines; 1 x 54.5 MW (73,100 hp) Fuji Pelton-type turbine
Installed capacity	313 megawatts (420,000 hp)
Capacity factor	0.8
Annual generation	1,255 gigawatt-hours (4,520 TJ)
Website hydro.com.au/energy/our-power-stations/great-lake-south-esk-0/poatina

The Poatina Power Station is a conventional hydroelectric power station located in the Central Highlands region of Tasmania, Australia. The power station is situated on the Great Lake and South Esk and is owned and operated by Hydro Tasmania.

Technical details

Located in the Great Lake and South Esk catchment area, Poatina makes use of a 900-metre (3,000 ft) descent from the Great Western Tiers to the Norfolk Plains in Tasmania's northern Midlands. Water from Great Lake is diverted via a tunnel to the edge of the Great Western Tiers where it plummets down a viable penstock line, which enters the ground again near the power station. The Poatina Power Station is located 150 metres (490 ft) underground in a massive artificial cavern hence the name Poatina, Palawa for "cavern" or "cave". The headrace tunnel and penstocks were bored through mudstone with the aid of a Robbins Mole. Water leaves the power station via a roughly 4-kilometre (2.5 mi) long tailrace tunnel and discharges into the Macquarie River via Brumbies Rivulet.

Poatina was commissioned in 1964, and replaced the Waddamana and Shannon power stations. The small construction village of Poatina sits perched on top of a low plateau, 3.5 kilometres (2.2 mi) from the stations subterranean location.

The power station has six vertical shaft generating sets, five Boving 51.6-megawatt (69,200 hp) Pelton-type turbines of which three are upgraded Andritz turbines and one Fuji 54.5-megawatt (73,100 hp) Pelton-type turbine with a combined generating capacity of 300 megawatts (400,000 hp) of electricity. The station output, estimated at 1,255 gigawatt-hours (4,520 TJ) annually, is fed to Transend Networks' transmission grid via underground circuit breakers to two 16 kV/110 kV and four 16 kV/220 kV generator transformers located in the switchyard above.

See also

• List of power stations in Tasmania

External links

• Hydro Tasmania page on Great Lake-South Esk scheme