28-04-2023: Today the Liddell Power Station in Muswellbrook will close-down, after 51 years of service.

It had a 2,000MW capacity (except for the last year or five), and produced 48,000MWh or 48,000,000 KWhs “every” day.

Putting that into perspective: A 5kw solar system produces on average, 20KWh of power every day, except for the days that it doesn’t.

Hence it would take 2,400,000 5kw systems to produce Liddell’s daily output.

Size-wise:  A 5kw solar system with 12 panels has 20sqm of panels, so the 2,400,000 5KW systems would require 48,000,000 sqm of panels.

Add to that: Solar panels with luck will last 25 years. On the assumption that solar replacements were built for Liddell, then in next 50 years there will be a total of 96,000,000 sqm or 9,600 hectares of non-recyclable panels going to the tip.

And the real kicker is that Liddell only supplied 20% of NSW’s coal power, but as the other 80% are to be retired in the next few years, you need to multiply all of the above solar figures by 5. It’s mind-boggling!

So why do the calculations done by the experts, never seem to come up with these large figures? 

I suspect that their requirements are based on MWhs, but their solutions are based on KWhs and they don’t fully take into account the 1,000/1 MW-to-KW factor.

I have checked the above figure many times, but there could be oopses, so if you find any please respond.

John Ibbotson (Native Australian), Lawrence