After many false starts, a new 750MW power station will provide much needed energy to the Chinchilla district in western Queensland. The Queensland Government’s CS Energy Ltd has awarded the contract to Siemens and Hitachi to build the Kogan Creek Power Station.
“The project has been discussed for the past 15 years and it is now finally a reality,” Council’s Chief Executive Officer, Ed Hoffman.
He said the project would obviously be a powerful jolt to the region’s economy.
“We have started to plan for the influx of workers into the region while the construction is taking place,” Ed Hoffman said.
Siemens Public Affairs Manager, Brad Voss, said the company will tend to employ local people and local contractors, but specialist engineers may come from as far afield as Germany.
The project will provide a major boost for the area with 1,000 jobs created during the construction of the power plant and a further 120 permanent jobs when the project is complete. This is a massive change given that Chinchilla Shire has a population of 5,900 people.
Chincilla is 300 kilometres west of Brisbane, in the Western Darling Downs on the Warrego Highway, the main link to western Queensland and the legendary Outback.
Ed Hoffman said that he was pleased that the station would be built with minimal impact to the environment as agriculture was a key industry for the area.
“Energy generation diversifies the economic basis for the region which has been predominantly been agriculture,” he said.
The power station will be a single unit steam turbine plant, fired by coal from an adjacent open cut mine. Ed Hoffman said the Surat basin coal being used is of a very high quality and the impact on the environmental would be minimal.
The station is being built to the highest modern environmental standards using the latest technology for power generation. The project design includes supercritical steam conditions and a dry cooling system for the exhaust steam.
The plant is located approximately 25km southeast of the Chinchilla township.
