We visited Loy Yang Power Station and its open cut brown coal mine.
The mine is quite incredible with four enormous 4000 tonne rotating bucket dredges digging 90,000 tonnes of coal per day. The coal here is of high quality but is 60% water so it is necessary to locate the power station next to the mine to contain transport costs. All the coal is carried from the dredges to the boilers by huge belt conveyers which include a gigantic conveyor switchyard called the Jungle.
The power station itself is much less dramatic than the mine because most of the works are hidden by various ancilliary service like gas circulation and so on. The pointy end of the whole operation is four alternators which , in comparison with the other pieces of plant, are small and look quite unimpressive.