Munmorah power station faces demolition

OREANDA-NEWS. June 05, 2015. State-run Australian utility Delta Electricity has issued a tender for the demolition of the coal-fired Munmorah power station in New South Wales state three years after it closed.

A number of ageing Australian coal-fired power stations have closed during the past three years because of flat wholesale power prices and oversupply in the National Electricity Market, which covers Australia's east coast.

But few of these shut power stations have taken the step to be demolished. They have instead been mothballed and could be reactivated should market conditions require additional power sources, and if there continues to be no legislation to limit greenhouse gas emissions in Australia's power sector.

Munmorah, near Lake Macquarie about 130km north of Sydney, started up in 1969 with total capacity of 1,400MW. But two of the four 350MW units were decommissioned in the 1990s, with it operating a single unit from March 2009 until its closure in July 2012.