The station comprises three 120 megawatt (MW) General Electric Frame 9E turbines, and a 270 megawatt steam turbine, which is driven by steam raised from the three gas turbines’ waste heat.

Origin acquired the development and regulatory approvals for a gas-fired power station in the Darling Downs region in February 2007, as a result of the acquisition of Sun Retail from the Queensland Government.

A consortium of General Electric and CH2M Hill constructed the project, which created approximately 1,000 jobs during the construction phase.

Low-emissions power

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Darling Downs is one of Australia’s most efficient baseload gas-fired power stations, capable of supplying enough energy to power more than 400,000 homes each day.

Origin Energy Managing Director Grant King said that the project “is a $1 billion investment by Origin in electricity generation technology that can help Australia start to meet its objectives of reducing carbon emissions.”

The station will emit less than half the greenhouse gas of a typical water-cooled coal-fired power station of the same capacity.

In addition, the power station will be air-cooled, meaning it only uses 200 megalitres of water a year (ML/a), approximately two to three per cent of the 8,500 ML/a of water used by a typical water-cooled coal-fired power station.

Part of a bigger picture

Darling Downs is part of Origin’s focus to become a vertically-integrated company – this being “using our own power stations, fired by our own fuel sources,” according to Origin.

The station is fuelled by coal seam gas (CSG), sourced primarily from the Spring Gully gas fields and supplemented by the Walloon gas fields, tenements are owned by Australia Pacific LNG, a joint venture between Origin and ConocoPhillips. The CSG is processed at Origin’s Spring Gully gas processing plant, then transported through existing pipeline infrastructure to Wallumbilla.