Chris Baker
The Wivenhoe pumped hydro station in South East Queensland (supplied: Queensland government)
Today is 18 September 2024 and that’s an important date for Sunshine Hydro.
Ten years ago I was living in a small community near Kenilworth in country Queensland. Imagine a bunch of hippies exploring how to live a more self-sufficient and sustainable life and you’ve got the general idea.
I started wondering how we might generate our own energy. After a few conversations around the shared meal table the idea of pumped hydro became more and more interesting. I always think my biggest advantage was that I didn’t know what was impossible. Engineers working in pumped hydro power stations know very well what cannot be done. From the start, I didn’t have that boundary, that impediment.
One day, not expecting too much, I picked up my phone and found the number for CS Energy which at that stage ran the pumped hydro station at the mighty Wivenhoe Dam.
CS Energy’s Head Office told me they couldn’t help me, but they knew who could. They put me through to Wivenhoe Power Station Manager Sorin Lupulescu. I will always be grateful that Sorin took me very seriously. We had a long talk and he invited me to visit.
I bought a new belt and generally did my best to dust off my professional engineering persona. However, as I rolled up to the boom gate in my old Citroen I was feeling pretty intimidated.
It was on this guided tour that the power of pumped hydro came home to me. The memory still takes my breath away. The scope of the plant is immense, like something out of a science fiction movie. I was in shock as I stood looking down the deep, deep concrete shaft which houses the machinery. The rotating part alone was 1500 tonnes, at that time the largest hydro machine in the southern hemisphere.
My engineer’s brain was working and so was the creativity which my small community thrived on. Something that heavy takes a lot of energy to start spinning, I thought. But once it starts, it really doesn’t want to stop. The notion of a huge spinning machine operating at a steady frequency is immensely valuable, particularly in Queensland with its high solar power contribution. Wind and solar don’t stabilise the grid frequency: Pumped hydro does. The sheer scope of this steady, reliable power source was a revelation to me.
You may be expecting me to end this story by telling you that today, Sunshine Hydro’s most advanced project, the Djandori Gung-I Superhybrid (600MW), can replicate Wivenhoe Power Station (570MW). That’s true but the full story is even better, as Djandori will be able to do that with half the water. And that’s just one of our projects.
The community-sized pumped hydro never eventuated. However, the seed for something much bigger was sown. So today, I and the team at Sunshine Hydro – including Sorin – will remember my first visit to Wivenhoe Power Station ten years ago with gratitude, and celebrate the many ways we have made the impossible possible.
