Origin Talinga Power Stations
Optimal came up with a clever solution to address reliability issues caused by the high liquid content in the fuel, that have led to the microturbines running perfectly ever since.
Project Details
| Site Owner | Origin |
| Commission Date | 2015 |
| Fuel Source | Natural Gas |
| Facility | Remote Power Stations |
| Location | Talinga, QLD |
| System Application | Combined Heat & Power (CHP) |
Description
The Talinga Coal Seam Gas (CSG) Project is co-owned and operated by Origin Energy (which is the largest integrated energy company operating across Australia and New Zealand), as part of the Australia Pacific LNG Pty Limited (APLNG) partnership. It is located approximately 30 km south-west of Chinchilla, Queensland. The gathering station enables Origin to maximise CSG production from the Talinga and Orana gas fields in the Surat Basin.
The Talinga CSG Project consists of 111 operating CSG wells, with commercial production beginning in December 2007. Origin was looking for ways to make this large and ambitious project more energy-efficient by taking wellhead gas and using that gas to generate power for the operation of the well. The C30 microturbines that Capstone offered at the time proved to be the perfect tool for Origin to do this, and they brought one for almost every CSG well, resulting in 100+ C30s being commissioned in Talinga.
In addition to the C30s to utilise the wellhead gas, 3 C1000 microturbines (with heat recovery) were also installed to provide power and heat to Origin’s reverse osmosis plant in Talinga.
This project was commissioned by another Capstone distributor, which Optimal Group inherited when we became the sole Capstone distributor for Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific.
After a few years of commissioning and after we took over the distributorship, the C30 microturbines started to have huge reliability issues relating to combustion caused by the high liquid content in the fuel. We approached Origin with a solution for this problem, who were on the verge of decommissioning all of the C30s in Talinga. Our solution was to design, build and install knockout fuel pre-conditioning skids that extracted the water content from the gas before sending it into the microturbines. This was a solution Origin was happy to take on, and we ended up installing the skids adjacent to the microturbines. As a result, the microturbines have been running perfectly ever since.