Worsley is a 120 MW coal power station in Western Australia, Australia. It is operated by BHP. Based on its capacity (estimated), it can supply roughly 150k homes (estimated). It ranks #159 of 536 Australia power plants by installed capacity. Commissioned in 1982, it is around 44 years old — long-established. Its modelled annual emissions are 923,780 t CO₂/yr (Climate TRACE), equivalent to about 215k 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 AUS0000389.
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 L100000100043); fuel: WRI source-record fuel
At 120 MW, Worsley is below 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 BHP.
This coal plant burns coal to raise high-pressure steam that spins a turbine-generator. It sits in a warm-summer Mediterranean climate (Köppen Csb) — Southern Hemisphere, latitude 33.2°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 52% 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: 28/100 — 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 an aggressive, high-corrosion environment (estimated ISO 9223 class C5 — Very high), with marine salt corrosion 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 #36 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 -33.2355, 116.0688 from WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0). View on OpenStreetMap.
Worsley is a 120 MW source-record coal power plant in Western Australia, Australia, commissioned in 1982.
Its output is enough to supply roughly 150,171 homes (estimated).
Worsley is operated by BHP.
Worsley has modelled emissions of about 923,780 tonnes of CO₂ per year (Climate TRACE).
