AGL Bogong Power Development Project
Energy company AGL Energy is constructing a new $230 million underground hydro-electricity station at Bogong Village.
The 140-megawatt power station, which is being built adjacent to the village beside Lake Guy, adds the final power station to the Kiewa Hydro Electric Scheme as it was envisaged in the 1950s.
There are two construction sites at Bogong, with the one closest to the village being tucked away out of sight around a bend of the lake. Both construction areas have been closed off to the public but there is a viewing platform near the Lake Guy site so that visitors can watch heavy equipment such as dozers and excavators at work (
see reports). The construction site has its own access road to the Bogong High Plains Road.
The project does not involve building a new dam but instead will bring water via a 6.5 kilometre underground tunnel from the existing McKay Creek Power Station to the new station at Bogong before recycling the water yet again through Clover Power Station and then the West Kiewa Power Station.
McConnell Dowell, the principal civil contractor responsible for construction of the tunnel, is currently reassembling a tunnel boring machine, at its construction site.
The machine is 30 metres long, but with all the back-up gantries including control cabin, transformers, staff amenities and conveyor belt it will be 140 metres long.
The Bogong Power Station, due to be commissioned in late 2009, will produce an additional 140MW of electricity and generate 94 000 MWh of emission free new renewable electricity each year. This is enough to supply approximately 18,000 Victorian households’ annual electricity usage, abating around 93,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions each year.
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