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National Engineering Heritage Landmark- Yallourn Power StationPrint Page 
The plaque recognises Yallourn Power Station as a National Engineering Heritage Landmark.
The Institution of Engineers Australia, through its Heritage Committees, established the Australian Historic Engineering Plaquing Program to acknowledge past engineering achievements and to draw public attention to the significant contributions they have made to society.The Plaquing Program is a means of bringing public recognition to significant historic engineering works and the engineers who created them. The Program is intended to contribute to the conservation of Australian engineering heritage.
Location
| Address: | Ridge Road , PowerWorks Education Centre , Morwell, 3840 |
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| State: | VIC |
| Area: | AUS |
| GPS Coordinates: | Lat: -38.247793 Long: 146.413635 Note: GPS Coordinates are approximate. |
Details
| Monument Type: | Plaque |
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| Monument Theme: | Technology |
| Sub-Theme: | Industry |
Dedication
| Actual Monument Dedication Date: | Wednesday 26th October, 2011 |
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ENGINEERING HERITAGE
The Institution Of
ENGINEERS AUSTRALIA
Founded 1919
NATIONAL LANDMARK
Yallourn Power Station
Engineering Heritage Significance
Yallourn Power Station demonstrated several important technological developments which were of national significance in power station practice in Australia.
It was the first power station to be located on the coalfield which supplied its fuel. Early power station practice had placed power stations within cities supplying energy at quite low voltages to customers without an intervening transmission system. This invariably meant transporting the coal by rail and/or ship to the power station. Yallourn was placed immediately adjacent to the coalfield using dedicated mechanical handling equipment to deliver coal to the power station. Power stations located on coalfields require high voltage transmission systems. At Yallourn 132 kv transmission was adopted initially to transmit power to Melbourne.
The engineers of Yallourn overcame the problems of converting their rich brown coalfields into electricity and minimising transport costs. Victorians have since enjoyed a cheap and plentiful source of power which gave their industries a major advantage in terms of production efficiency.
Yallourn was an early adopter of pulverised coal as a method of delivering fuel to the boiler. The innovation paralleled efforts to develop more efficient pre-drying of the very high moisture content coal mined at Yallourn. Pulverised coal fuel for large utility boilers later became universal.
Yallourn represented five stages of power development , constructed over a period of 40 years and operated for 65 years, during which enormous increases in the size of boilers and turbo-generators occurred. All five stages of development were operated simultaneously at Yallourn between 1961 and 1968.
Engineering Heritage Australia has recognised Yallourn Power Station as having national engineering heritage significance. Representatives of Engineers Australia and PowerWorks unveiled this marker on 26 October 2011.
