Battery of the Nation

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The Battery of the Nation initiative is investigating and developing a pathway of future development opportunities for Tasmania to make a greater contribution to the National Energy Market (NEM). With the support of ARENA funding, Hydro Tasmania have conducted two pre-feasibility studies on the Tarraleah and Gordon hydro-electric power schemes exploring how each may be redeveloped for the future NEM.The Tarraleah scheme located in the Upper Derwent River in Tasmania commenced generation in 1938 and continued to be developed in a number of stages to 1966. The Tarraleah Scheme currently generates around 634 GWh per year of largely base load energy, providing around 6.5% of Hydro Tasmania’s annual power generation. The analysis found that an option to expand the capacity of the Tarraleah scheme to 220MW and increase its flexibility in operation was potentially feasible.As part of this project Hydro Tasmania also conducted a pre-feasibility analysis into how the Gordon hydro-electric power scheme may be redeveloped for the future NEM. The report found that a solution to more efficiently generate power from the environmental water flow released to the Gordon River using a smaller turbine designed for these flows is technically and commercially feasible. However, the project was prioritised against other business capital expenditure needs and will not be proceeding to implementation at this stage.

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