Queenslanders have been assured they will have enough electricity supply while a major coal power station slowly returns to half capacity after going offline.
All four units at the Callide power station, near Biloela, were knocked out for three hours on Friday following a series of accidents and equipment failures.
Callide can generate up to 1540MW of electricity, which is roughly 30 per cent of the state’s overnight demand.
Public firm CS Energy owns and operates the Callide B plant, while it operates Callide C in a joint venture with Intergen.
CS Energy said one Callide B unit is already back online and the other will return to service by Wednesday, but Callide C’s two units will take much longer.
CS chief executive Andrew Bills said concerns about potential power outages in Queensland are overblown as the state has an abundance of sources.
“We’ve got tremendous solar, tremendous wind, coal and gas, and there are no concerns going forward regarding the electricity supply,” he told reporters on Friday.
“As I said (unit) B1’s already back online, B2 will be back next week, so I think those issues that have been raised are slightly misleading.”
Callide’s problems began when the C4 was taken out by a catastrophic explosion in May 2021, then on Monday the C3 was taken offline after a cooling tower partially collapsed.
The B2 was tripped during routine testing the following day, before B1 was also tripped by a vibration issue on Friday morning.
Workplace Health and Safety Queensland is investigating the incidents at Callide, and Energy Minister Mick de Brenni will brief cabinet about the situation on Monday.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said Queenslanders didn’t need to worry about the state’s electricity supply.
“I’m advised that we have enough supply in the system at this stage – we’ll be getting that update on Monday,” she told reporters.
Mining and Energy Union Queensland vice president Shane Brunker said maintenance was being neglected at Callide “in the race to shut down coal power and move to renewables”.
“The focus should be on investing in the existing fleet and exploring opportunities to improve them rather than running them down,” Mr Brunker said in a statement.
Mr Bills denied those claims, saying CS Energy was upholding its statutory obligations on maintenance, and that this week’s issues were a “distinct series of coincidence events”.
However, he said he was taking safety concerns raised with him by unions and other workers very seriously.
“So those concerns do need to be addressed, and whatever else we need to do, working with the unions and our people, absolutely needs to be our priority,” Mr Bills said.
The Callide C plant’s C3 unit will be offline until November 21, while the replacment C4 unit will be online by April, CS Energy said.
© AAP 2022
