The Paloona Dam is a concrete-faced rock-fill embankment dam across the Forth River, located in northern Tasmania, Australia. Completed in 1971, the resultant reservoir, Lake Paloona, was established for the purpose of generation of hydroelectricity via the adjacent Paloona Power Station, a run-of-the-river hydroelectric power station.
The dam, its reservoir, and the power station are owned and operated by Hydro Tasmania.
Dam and reservoir overview The concrete-face rockfill dam wall is high and long. When full, Lake Paloona has capacity of and covers , drawn from a catchment area of . The uncontrolled spillway has a flow capacity of .
Hydroelectric power station The Paloona Power Station is part of the MerseyForth scheme that comprises seven run-of-the-river hydroelectric power stations and one mini-hydro power station. The final station in the scheme, the Paloona Power Station is located immediately below the dam wall. Water from Lake Paloona is fed to the power station by a short single penstock under the dam.
The power station was commissioned in 1972 by the Hydro Electric Corporation (TAS) with a Fuji Kaplan-type turbine, with a generating capacity of . In 2014 the turbine was upgraded to a more efficient Andritz Kaplan-type turbine, which also has a generating capacity of . The station output, estimated to be annually, is fed to TasNetworks' transmission grid via an 11 kV/110 kV Siemens generator transformer to the outdoor switchyard.
See also
List of power stations in Tasmania List of reservoirs and dams in Tasmania List of run-of-the-river hydroelectric power stations
References
External links