ABB has secured a new order with global energy operator ENGIE to provide management support, expert advice and develop technical and commercial documentation on a significant decommissioning and proposed demolition project at Hazelwood Power Station and Mine in Australia.
ABB’s Australian business will lead on the project, providing a range of independent consultancy andengineering advice to ENGIE. It will also guide the company through the process of planning for demolition and managing demolition contractors.
Based in the Latrobe Valley region of Gippsland, approximately 160 kilometres East of Melbourne, Victoria, ENGIE’s Hazelwood Power Station and Mine ceased generating electricity and closed in March 2017. The plant capacity was 1600MW with eight x 200 Megawatt boiler/turbine units with fuel supplied by an adjacent open cut brown coal mine via continuous mining equipment.
ABB Australia will draw upon the expertise of its industry specialists in the UK, who provide late life, decommissioning and demolition consultancy to operators in the high hazard industries.
ABB Head of Oil, Gas and Chemicals Service, UK, Troy Stewart, said a number of factors had led to the company winning the contract.
“A combination of our local ABB presence in Australia, our position as a global leader in late life, decommissioning and demolition consultancy for the high hazard industries, and our extensive experience on other decommissioning and demolition projects in the power generation sector put us in a strong positon,” Stewart said.
The front-end work on the project will likely take until the end of this year.Hazelwood Rehabilitation Project Director, Tony Innocenzi, said the appointment of ABB to assist in the next phase of the power station remediation would ensure the project was best placed to undertake the large scope of works associated with demolition.
“Drawing on the expertise of ABB will assist in the pre-planning work required for the power station demolition,” Innocenzi said. “Support will also be provided in the development of the demolition tender specification and in the final steps of tendering to contractors and tender evaluation."
With over 35 years’ experience working on high hazard industrial assets, or removal of redundantequipment from operating assets, ABB has built up an in-depth knowledge of industry best practice, across a range of sectors including power generation, oil and gas (onshore and offshore), chemicals, and pharmaceuticals.
ABB assists clients with their late life, decommissioning and demolition projects, including, but notlimited to designing for demolition utilising in-house multifunctional engineering support and helping to ensure forseeable risks are removed from the demolition process where practical.
This includes support for: isolations and re-routes; civil and structural engineering support to preweakening; process safety support to design for modifications to live plant and legal compliance; reroutesand isolations; environmental support to site investigation; remediation and permit surrender;integrity and inspection support to mothballing; and preservation.
ABB (ABBN: SIX Swiss Ex) is a pioneering technology leader in electrification products, robotics and motion,industrial automation and power grids, serving customers in utilities, industry and transport & infrastructureglobally. Continuing a history of innovation spanning more than 130 years, ABB today iswriting the future of industrial digitalization with two clear value propositions: bringing electricity fromany power plant to any plug and automating industries from natural resources to finished products. Astitle partner of Formula E, the fully electric international FIA motorsport class, ABB is pushing the boundariesof e-mobility to contribute to a sustainable future. ABB operates in more than 100 countries withabout 135,000 employees. www.abb.com
