8 hours ago
Collapse at Yallourn Power Station leaves unit offline for weeks
A unit at Yallourn Power Station in Victoria's Latrobe Valley is expected to be offline for weeks following a major incident at the weekend.
Power station operator EnergyAustralia said in a statement an air duct in unit three collapsed during maintenance, detaching from the boiler end and falling to the floor.
No-one was injured and WorkSafe was notified.
EnergyAustralia said it expected the unit to be offline for at least two weeks and it was investigating the incident "to ensure the integrity of similar equipment".
WorkSafe said in a statement its inspectors would determine any further action needed at Yallourn.
The outage comes after a Reliability Watch report released last month found Yallourn Power Station had the highest breakdown rate of any of Gippsland's coal-fired power stations.
Yallourn recorded 18 breakdowns between October 2024 and March 2025 when only five outages had been planned, according to the report.
Most of the outages included in the analysis happened at unit four.
Yallourn Power Station is the oldest of the remaining coal-fired facilities in the Latrobe Valley.
It originally consisted of six plants, with the first built in 1921.
Today just one of the six — built in 1974 — remains and generates about 22 per cent of Victoria's electricity each year.
The power station is set to close in 2028.
The ABC contacted the Department of Energy, Environment, and Climate Action and Victorian Minister for Energy and Resources Lily D'Ambrosio for comment.
