Tasmania's largest hydroelectric power station generates 13 per cent of the state's energy demands. Now, the Gordon Power Station is having its turbines refurbished - after almost half a century of operation.
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00:00Hey, over here.
00:06This is Gordon Dam, part of Tasmania's biggest and Australia's fifth largest hydroelectrical
00:12power station.
00:19This dam wall's 140 metres high.
00:22That's one and a half times the height of the Statue of Liberty.
00:29Nearby, 180 metres underground in the power station, three turbines can produce 432 megawatts
00:37of electricity.
00:39That's enough to power 10 million light bulbs at the same time.
00:44So approximately 90,000 litres per second flow through these turbines and that's enough
00:48to fill an Olympic sized swimming pool in about 25 seconds.
00:52Hydro Tasmania is upgrading two of the three turbines.
00:56The planning effort involved in these sorts of refurbishments is pretty extensive.
01:00Approximately three to four years designing, procuring, manufacturing of new components
01:05designed specifically for this power station.
01:08It's a big day for us here, we're planning to remove the stator from number two machine.
01:13A stator is the fixed outer shell of the turbine and is wrapped in copper wire.
01:19When the rotor, which is covered in electromagnets, spins around the stator, it generates electricity.
01:27Mate, it's on.
01:30Removing it is no mean feat.
01:33Weighing almost 180 tonnes, it requires two cranes to delicately lift it out.
01:39Top!
01:40Yep.
01:41Balancing the load between both cranes took a whole day of fine tuning, but in just over
01:46an hour, the stator is removed.
01:49We get to play a part in pulling this machine to pieces, putting in some new equipment and
01:54then building it back up.
01:56The $78 million project to refurbish the two turbines will allow them to be used for another
02:0230 years.
02:03Powerine, on for tomorrow.