Poatina, Australia

The Poatina underground power station is part of the Great Lake Power Scheme and houses six vertical sets between 51.6 and 60 MW. The contract for ANDRITZ covers the design, manufacture, factory testing, and delivery of four new turbine runners, six set of nozzles, five governor systems, and ancillary equipment to replace aged equipment. It includes further engineering, model test and transient studies from ANDRITZ Hydro locations in Austria and Switzerland as well as the manufacturing of the components in Europe.

Technical highlights are the interoperability between the new runners for units 2 and 3 and the existing runners of units #1, #4 and #5. The nozzle profile design is challenging. A solution featuring a torpedo much more compact than usual has been proposed by our mechanical engineering department using a nozzle design without spring. The absence of the spring will help to reduce the required space which also leads to better efficiency.

The new equipment will reduce the asset risk over future decades and will maximise the interchangeability of parts between units #1 - #5. Model test and transient studies will be performed to increase the turbine output to 64 MW, increase the runner efficiency and improve the operational flexibility from the HPP Poatina units maximising the revenue opportunities in the market.

The contract for HPP Poatina is once again an important step to strengthen our presence in the Australian hydropower market.