Hydro Tasmania has started work on the Tarraleah hydropower scheme’s new 1km tunnel with drilling and blasting now safely underway.
The new tunnel will connect the intake at Lake King William to a conveyance system that will feed water into Tarraleah Power station.
Tasmanian company Hazell Bros Group and tunnelling company Tunnelling Solutions will complete the work together.
It is anticipated to take around 15 months to complete around 260 blasts to remove approximately 100,000 tonnes of material along the tunnel length.
Hazell Bros Group recently completed the downstream tunnel entrance, which enables the next phase of upgrades to commence.
These are upgrades on a scheme that has delivered clean energy to Tasmania for 85 years and is now having its future reimagined as the energy market transitions to low emissions energy sources.
The Tarraleah scheme was commissioned in the 1930s and produces around 630 gigawatt hours of energy each year, or 6.5 per cent, of Hydro Tasmania’s total production.
Hydro Tasmania produces about 9000GW hours of clean electricity from hydropower, enough to power about 900,000 Australian homes and small businesses.
Its system has a total capacity of more than 2600MW and includes 30 power stations and more than 50 major dams.
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