After being suspended during the pandemic, Hydro Tasmania is thrilled to officially restart its power station open days for the public.

A capacity crowd of over 170people attended yesterday’s (Saturday) Tribute Power Station open day and saw first-hand how water from Tasmania’s west is turned into clean electricity.

Rachel Johnson, Hydro Tasmania’s Acting Executive General Manager of People, Culture and Engagement, said the open day would be the first of many.

“The success of this weekend’s open day shows how passionate and proud Tasmanians are of their hydro history,” she said.

“We had to suspend open days during the pandemic, but now they’ve officially restarted, we’ll look to do more, in different locations around the state.”

Christopher Walker, who attended the open day at Tribute power station, said he’d been waiting for the open days to start up again and described the experience as “gobsmacking”.

“Unless you get down there and have a look, you don’t realise the scope and the amount of work that goes in there. I think everyone has got a big kid inside them. We just love big machines and tunnels and stuff like that,” Mr Walker said.

Power station tours are also important to the people who power Hydro Tasmania, who take great pride in their work.

“Tasmanians are our owners and our most important customers. It’s fantastic to show them how we’re helping to provide clean, reliable energy for the state,” Ms Johnson said.

The Tribute Power Station was commissioned in 1994 and named in honour of the thousands of workers who sacrificed so much to build Tasmania’s hydropower system. 

Open day tickets are free, but spaces are limited. Subscribe to The Spill to get all the information about Hydro Tasmania open days: https://www.hydro.com.au/the-spill/subscribe.

Dropbox link to VNR footage & images.