There’s a myth that Old Coal plants are failing and can’t handle summer heat

Media elements in Australia are pushing the myth that aging coal plants are failing and that they can’t handle summer heat as if a plant with an operating temperature of 570°C plus will work at 38°C and fail at 40°C. It’s a hot topic today because AGL has just flagged an extended outage of seven months for one unit at Loy Yang A2. That may linger well into summer — potentially out of action til mid January. Ouch.

Paul McArdle, expert grid generator analyst, who writes at WattClarity, protests at the repeated misinformation and points out that there has been no increase in “sudden trips” as the Australian fleet of coal power stations ages. Nor are these failures more likely in summer. It’s just that we notice them more then. He points out that the failure rate across the whole coal fleet in Australia is not rising, and that there was a six month outage in 2001 at Loy Yang A4 — obviously when it was much younger.

Brief Comment on the Extended Outage at Loy Yang A unit 2

Paul McArdle says we’re playing Russian Roulette with the grid and it’s a world class mess:

As […]