18 breakdowns in six months, Yallourn power station's latest outage is nothing new

A unit at Yallourn Power Station is expected to be offline for at least two weeks after an air duct detached from the boiler end and fell to the basement floor at 1am on Sunday, June 8.

The closure of unit 3 (one of four Yallourn units) adds to the long list of breakdown history at the oldest running coal-fired power station in the Latrobe Valley.

A statement from Yallourn Power Station operator Energy Australia said the company is taking the matter “extremely seriously” with a priority to “ensure our people continue to remain safe.”

The incident occurred while the unit was offline for maintenance. No one was injured and Worksafe has been notified and will investigate.

Energy Australia said it is investigating to “ensure the integrity of similar equipment at the power station”.

History of breakdowns

Last month, a report from Reliability Watch found that Yallourn Power Station had recorded 18 breakdowns between October 2024 and March 2025 when only five outages had been planned.

The report used data from Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) and found that Loy Yang A unit 4 and Yallourn unit 4 were among the most unreliable power station units in Victoria last summer.

As Victoria’s fleet of coal fired power stations age, Reliability Watch’s report found maintenance frequency and time had increased.

AEMO had expected there to be 17 planned outages between October 2024 and March 2025 – instead, there were 145 outages.

The report says “this is 128 breakdowns in six months. Many of the breakdowns were short-lived, but there is also an increasing trend for scheduled maintenance to overrun predicted time”.

The four units at Yallourn exceeded planned maintenance times by an average of nearly 60 percent.

The previous five units at Yallourn were decommissioned after 33 years but the current four were commissioned in 1973 and 1982, making them on average 15 years older than the previous units.

An independent review by the federal government found that by 2030, 55 percent of coal fired power stations in Australia will be over 40 years old.

Australia’s Climate Council says very old coal power stations are becoming increasingly expensive to operate as their maintenance costs increase.

Climate Councillor and energy expert Greg Bourne said in a statement; “a coal generator’s availability to produce electricity begins to decline from 40 years old, decreasing from 81 percent to 65 percent on average.

“More than half of our coal fleet was built in the 1980s. As they age, their reliability drops dramatically. In states like New South Wales and Victoria, where coal stations are the oldest, the risks are particularly acute.”

In 2023 Energy Australia announced a two-year $400 million investment in Yallourn to improve asset reliability, performance, and safety.

Yallourn is scheduled to close in 2028.

Image credit: Michael Greenhill.