Project Description
Client: Hydro Tasmania
Year: 2011
The Lake Margaret Hydro-Electric Power Scheme was built between 1912 and 1914, and included a woodstave pipeline to connect the dam to the pressure penstock feeding the power station. Hazell Bros Group, teamed with JMG Engineers and Planners, won the D&C contract from owners Hydro Tasmania for the new pipeline, with materials supplied by International Tank & Pipe Co. of Portland, Oregon, USA. There were over 600 different trestles and rail spans which were all separately detailed. JMG also designed lightweight trusses to span several unstable areas to support the pipe and construction/maintenance trolley loads
The Lake Margaret Hydro Power Station on Tasmania’s west coast is a relatively isolated power scheme with no vehicle access to the pipeline routes and hence traditional woodstave pipelines which can be assembled on site by labourers were adopted for both the upper and lower power station hilltop pipelines. Fibreglass pipe was used for the penstock at the lower Lake Margaret power station to resist the additional water pressure as the pipe goes down the hill toward the power station
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JMG were awarded a Tasmanian Engineering Excellence Award for our part in the upper Lake Margaret Hilltop Pipeline Replacement, which together with refurbishment of the original turbines and generators, allowed the reopening of the upper power station. Hazell Bros. for whom we designed the hilltop pipeline, won an Australian Earth Award for the project. Shaw Contracting who constructed the hilltop pipeline and penstock for the lower power station to JMG’s design won a Tasmanian Earth Award for that project.
