Tarong is a 1,400 MW coal power station in Queensland, Australia. It is operated by Stanwell Corporation Ltd. Based on its capacity (estimated), it can supply roughly 1.8 million homes (estimated). It ranks #10 of 536 Australia power plants by installed capacity. Commissioned in 1984, it is around 42 years old — long-established. Its modelled annual emissions are 8,355,300 t CO₂/yr (Climate TRACE), equivalent to about 1.9 million cars driven for a year. In context, coal supplies about 42.7% of Australia's electricity; the national grid averages 525 gCO₂/kWh (38.6% low-carbon) (2025).
Plant data: WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0), id AUS0000171.
Known, modelled and calculated values are kept separate. Missing fields are shown as unavailable.
The capacity and/or fuel fields on this page include a source-backed provenance label from GEM, an official registry, Wikidata, OSM, or a cross-source match.
capacity: GEM tracker 2026 (location L100000100024); fuel: WRI source-record fuel
At 1,400 MW, Tarong is well above the median coal plant in Australia (700 MW). Technically it is described as subcritical. Coal plants burn pulverised coal to raise high-pressure steam for a turbine; they run as baseload but are the most carbon-intensive mainstream source and the first targeted for retirement or efficiency retrofits.
Capacity comparison computed from the WRI Global Power Plant Database; fuel-type context is general engineering background.
This facility's annual emissions are roughly equivalent to:
Equivalencies via US EPA Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies; modelled emissions from Climate TRACE.
Installed capacity (MW), WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0).
Operated by Stanwell Corporation Ltd. All plants by this company →
This coal plant burns coal to raise high-pressure steam that spins a turbine-generator. It sits in a humid subtropical climate (Köppen Cfa) — Southern Hemisphere, latitude 26.8°S — which shapes how much energy it can produce and how its output varies through the year.
Monthly mean temperature
Heating degree-days here run 69% below the median power plant in this dataset — a proxy for how much extra energy heated equipment must replace through its surfaces in winter.
Climate heat-demand index: 24/100 — this site sits in the bottom third of the power plants we cover by heating degree-days.
Climate normals: WorldClim 2.1 (1970–2000 monthly normals, 10 arc-min, CC BY 4.0); zone: Köppen-Geiger world climate classification (Kottek et al. 2006, 0.5° grid). Degree-days & heat-demand index computed by PowerAtlas — a modelled heat-demand proxy, not a measured site figure.
For a plant’s outdoor hardware — heat-recovery steam generators (HRSG), expansion joints, valves, flanges and their insulation — the local climate sets how fast unprotected steel and coatings degrade. This site sits in a moderately corrosive environment (estimated ISO 9223 class C3 — Medium), with humidity / wetness the leading environmental stress.
Higher environmental severity is exactly where protective removable insulation pays back most: a sheltered micro-climate slows corrosion, UV and thermal-cycling damage and extends outdoor hardware service life. This is an indicative site-climate context — not a condition assessment of any specific plant or operator.
Indicative estimate via the ISO 9223:2012 informative method (atmospheric corrosivity from temperature, time-of-wetness and airborne salinity), using WorldClim climate normals, the Köppen-Geiger class and coast distance. Indicative, not a measured corrosion rate.
The #9 largest coal power plant of 38 in Australia by capacity.
Australia has 38 coal power plants in this dataset, together about 32,918 MW of capacity.
Coordinates -26.7824, 151.9153 from WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0). View on OpenStreetMap.
Tarong is a 1,400 MW source-record coal power plant in Queensland, Australia, commissioned in 1984.
Its output is enough to supply roughly 1,752,000 homes (estimated).
Tarong is operated by Stanwell Corporation Ltd.
Tarong has modelled emissions of about 8,355,300 tonnes of CO₂ per year (Climate TRACE).
