SEAPED briquette and power plant

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SEAPED briquette and power plant was a proposed demonstration power station in Victoria, Australia.

Location

The undated satellite photo below shows the Loy Yang A power station, the approximate location where SEAPED would have been built.

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Project summary

SEAPED was a US$119 million demonstration brown coal briquetting and power plant proposed to be built at the AGL-owned Loy Yang A Power Station in the Latrobe Valley.

SEAPED is the acronym of Shanghai Electric Australia Power & Energy Development, an Australian registered company. It is a subsidiary of Shanghai Electric Power & Energy Development, which is owned by the China Power Investment Corporation, one of the largest state-owned Chinese power companies.

Background on the proposal

In August 2012 the then federal and Victorian state governments announced a joint $90 million Advanced Lignite Demonstration Program to subsidise demonstration projects which used brown coal from Victoria's Latrobe Valley. The governments stated that the objectives of the program were to "develop and deploy emerging technology to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions intensity of lignite (brown coal), improve the economically recoverable return from lignite and provide employment opportunities in the Latrobe Valley and broader region."

On June 16 2014 the Federal Minister for Industry Ian Macfarlane and the Victorian Minister for Energy and Resources Russell Northe announced that $25 million had been awarded to SEAPED for “building and operating a pre-commercial briquetting plant and cogeneration unit”, “production of briquettes for export to China to fuel a power station in Shanghai” and “if demonstration is successful, a commercial-scale plant could potentially supply Latrobe Valley generators.” North stated that SEAPED estimates that the trial expect to create “up to” 40 jobs during operation and 100 during construction.

In June 2014 it was reported in The Age that the SEAPED is proposing to process one million tonnes of coal a year into 580,000 tonnes of briquettes.

According to Northe, the transportation of the briquettes to port for export would be addressed in a transport plan for the project. However, an earlier transport plan indicated that industry proposed briquettes initially be trucked to either Geelong or the port of Melbourne for export. A full scale project would require the construction of a new port, most likely at 90 Mile Beach in Gippsland.

As of June 2018 there are no updates on the project, and it appears to have been deferred or abandoned.

Timeline

• August 2012: Federal and state ministers announce $90 million Advanced Lignite Demonstration Program;
• June 16 2014: Federal and state ministers announce $25 million grant for the project;

Project Details

• Sponsor: Shanghai Electric Australia Power & Energy Development
• Parent company: State Power Investment Corporation
• Location: Traralgon, Australia
• Coordinates:-38.254001,146.57434 (approximate)
• Status: Cancelled
• Gross Capacity: Unknown
• Type:
• Projected in service:
• Coal Type: Brown coal
• Coal Source: Loy Yang mine
• Source of financing: Australian & Victorian governments plus unknown others

Articles and resources

Related GEM.wiki articles

• Researching coal in Victoria
• Victoria and coal

• Australia and coal
• Carbon Capture and Storage
• Carbon Capture and Storage in Australia
• New South Wales and coal
• Queensland and coal