Progress and approvals

19 May 2021

Snowy Hydro Managing Director and CEO Paul Broad and Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction Angus Taylor MP announce the Hunter Power Project on site at Kurri Kurri.

27 September 2021

Following a competitive procurement process and global search, a contract was signed with Mitsubishi Power to deliver two 330MW world-leading and hydrogen-ready F-Class open cycle gas turbines (OCGT). The Hunter Power Project will underpin greater investment in renewables, firming up an estimated 1.5 to 2GW of renewables from within Snowy’s portfolio. That’s equivalent to 160,000 household solar installations.

17 October 2021

The Hunter Power Project is based on a strong business case and will have a double-digit internal rate of return in the order 12.3%. It will build on Snowy’s record of sound and strategic investments. 

February 2022

Earthworks for the gas-fired power station are well underway. Approximately 125,000 cubic metres of dirt and aggregates were moved on site to help build the construction pad. Approximately 6,750 cubic metres of dirt were excavated for the foundations for the gas turbine and generator.

November 2022

Almost 200 20-metre deep continuous flight auger piles that will hold the foundations for the turbines and infrastructure are installed at site.

February 2023

The Hunter Power Project completed the first concrete pour that will form the foundation of the first Gas Turbine, known as GT1.

March 2023

The concrete pour for the foundation of GT2 was completed over an 18 hour period.

June 2023

Two generator stators arrived on site at Kurri Kurri after their journey from the Port of Newcastle.

The 150-metre-long convoy containing the 314-tonne generator stator left the Port of Newcastle at 9pm on a Saturday evening and arrived at the Kurri Kurri site at 2am on the Sunday, where it was unloaded and positioned for installation.

The convoy included six prime movers, four police escort vehicles and four pilot vehicles.

July 2023

Two 313-tonne generators were successfully installed.

The Hunter Power Project team expertly performed all the required pre-checks and inspections before using a 600-tonne lift-and-lock jacking system to perfectly centre and lift the units. The units were first lifted 5-metres high and then moved 12-metres horizontally, before being lowered into position.

August 2023

Two 415-tonne gas fired turbines from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries are being reassembled on site from the ground up – the largest in Australia to be put together this way.

This task has commenced under domes to protect the turbines from contamination. Each turbine has approximately one million assembly parts to be reassembled under these domes. The reassembly requires a very high degree of precision and a fine tolerance of 0.02 millimetres, which is the smallest dimension that the human eye can resolve.

September 2023

Construction of the four tanks at Hunter Power Project are maintaining progress against their target completion dates. A milestone will be reached with the hydro-test of the Service Water Tank, scheduled for the first week in December.

Three of these tanks are constructed with carbon steel: one for service water and the other two for the back-up Diesel fuel. The fourth tank is being constructed of stainless steel and will store demineralised water that is essential for the energy generation process. 

Once finished, these tanks will have a capacity between 2.2 and 2.5 million litres each – approximately the same capacity as an Olympic pool.

November 2023

The installation of the Hunter Power Project’s rotor for Gas Turbine One has been successful.

The approximately 100-tonne critical component with 1,522 blades has been imported straight from Japan. Installation of the rotor required precision as the clearance between the blades and the rotor’s casing is crucial to the turbine’s function and efficiency. The equipment has now been sheltered temporarily to protect it from the elements.

Once in operation, the rotor will spin at 3,000 RPM – 50 times per second – faster than the human eye can discern.

February 2024

Work on the combustor installations was completed at the end of February 2024. 20 individual dual-fuel (diesel and gas) combustors were installed into both turbines, with each combustor weighing approximately 440kg each. Each one of these combustors are highly important for the functioning of the units. Fuel from the combustor is ignited and mixed with compressed air in the combustion chamber. The air then expands, pushing into the turbine blades, and subsequently chemical energy turns the shaft to generate mechanical energy. This mechanical energy is then converted into electrical energy by the generator.

March 2024

March 2024 marked another key milestone for HPP – the successful completion of the generator and turbine assembly for both units. After the assembly, a simple check was required – the team turned the turbine shaft and confirmed the successful assembly after the turbine ran smoothly, quietly and all functioned as expected.

April 2024

Preliminary alignment of the turbine / generator for both GT1 and GT2 was completed in April 2024. The HPP mechanical team made fine adjustments to the hundredth millimetre, ensuring the generator shaft was perfectly aligned with the turbine shaft. The piping team will step in next, to connect the piping into the turbine and generator casing flanges at their final positions.

April 2024

The Control and Administration building, which houses the central control room and distributed control system (DCS), was completed in April 2024. This building is where the future operations and maintenance team will be based. However, there will be a hive of commissioning activity for the DCS for the next few months. The DCS is the ‘brain’ of the entire power station, and all plant functions require verification and testing by the DCS using a visual representation of the facility.

June 2024

All four Balance of Plant Tanks have been completed and passed their hydrostatic tests. This involved filling the tanks with water to ensure there were no leaks. Each tank is approximately 11 metres high, with an internal diameter of 15 metres, and has a capacity of 1.944 million litres. When full, the total weight of each tank is 1,993 tonnes. The Service Water Tank is for potable water used across the project, while the Demineralised Water Tank will hold demineralised water of extremely high purity for use in the power generation process. It took 46 B-double trucks delivering 42,000L of water each from Colongra Power Station to fill the Demineralised Water Tank (third from left in image). The total travel distance of this two-week process was 5,520km or HPP to Perth and almost halfway back. All four tanks will now be handed over to the commissioning team, who will start filling the remaining tanks with diesel to be used for commissioning of the turbine. These diesel tanks will hold the back-up fuel to keep the turbines going when gas is not readily available.

June 2024

In the civil space at the Hunter Power Project, most services – including trade waste, stormwater systems, oily water systems, fire ring mains, and mechanical services – are completed in the ground. All concrete slabs in GT1, GT2, and Balance of Plant areas are completed except for some minor pipe supports and trenches, infill slabs, and light pole foundations. The civil team will now work on the finishing touches to site with infill pavement slabs, earthworks for pavements, and remaining pits and bollards.

June 2024

The installation of the Hunter Power Project’s Fin Fan Coolers has been successful. These closed-loop cooling systems weigh 30 tonnes each and are essentially air-cooled heat exchangers (ACHE). The process fluid enters the ACHE through inlet nozzles, passes through the tube bundle, and exits through outlet nozzles, cooling down as it transfers heat to the surrounding air. The tube bundle is cooled from air forced through by fans driven via electric motors. At HPP, each gas turbine has a dedicated closed-loop cooling water system. These systems circulate demineralised water treated with corrosion-inhibiting chemicals to cool the following equipment:

• The generator
• Control oil
• Lube oil
• High-pressure purge air compressors

July 2024

At Gas Turbine One (GT1), all three phases of the Isolated Phase Bus (IPB) have been connected from the Generator Step-Up Transformer (GSUT) to the Generator Circuit Breaker (GCB). The HPP team aims to extend the connection from the GCB to GT1 by mid-September 2024. This is an important milestone for HPP with the IPB on the critical path. The IPB carries the power from the Gas Turbine Generator to the GSUT, which is where the power lines start for the transmission.

August 2024

Kurri North Switching Station (KNSS) is complete. This switching station will be handed over to Ausgrid for their energisation of the facility by the end of August 2024. KNSS connects the two generators at HPP to the broader 132 kV network. It is how the power generated from HPP makes its way into the National Electricity Market (NEM).

August 2024

Pressure testing for the diesel system, demineralised water system, fire water system and lube oil system has commenced. Pressure testing aims to check that the pipework is fit for service without any leaks in flanges, pipes or welds. All tests occur in a controlled environment to ensure the safety for the testing personnel. Pressure testing is performed well above the expected design pressure of the service to ensure any issues are identified.

August 2024

The HPP team completed a walk down for the 132kV Control and Protection Room. This room is critical for commissioning HPP as it enables back-energisation of the power station from the grid later this year. It houses electrical protection equipment that protects the transmission lines, feeders and generator transformers from electrical faults. It also contains the metering equipment that measures electrical output from the power station for revenue purposes.

August 2024

Grouting and final alignment of GT1 is complete. Grouting is a six-step sequential process and ensures mechanical equipment has a smooth contact surface for levelling and alignment. The sequence is as follows: (1) generator/slip ring/turning device foundation bolts; (2) slip ring seating plate; (3) generator seating plate; (4) enclosure I-beam; (5) generator walkway; and (6) turning device seating plate.