Morwell Power Station & Briquette Factory

Location - https://maps.app.goo.gl/MF4gBCnd2J7DPAWF7

Origins:
The project began under the State Electricity Commission of Victoria (SECV) after WWII: field works at the Morwell open cut and orders for briquetting plant were started in 1949 as part of Victoria’s post-war energy program. The combined complex was planned as a power station + briquette works: coal would be used for electricity generation and also dried/pressed into domestic/industrial briquettes (and partly for town-gas manufacture).

Construction, commissioning & early years:
Work stalled in the early 1950s (recession/credit issues) but resumed in the mid-1950s. Power production began in the mid to late-1950s (sources report first electricity generation to the grid in 1956–1958 and briquette commercial production from 1959). Different sections of the site and sources give slightly different milestone dates: briquette test runs in Sept 1959; commercial briquetting from December 1959. The Morwell coal proved chemically challenging for briquetting (high alkali/sulfur); to make acceptable briquettes operators sometimes had to bring in coal from nearby Yallourn, which added cost and complexity. Demand for briquettes was already falling with oil, electricity and later natural gas entering the market.

Operation, scale & role in the Latrobe Valley:
In its heyday the combined “Morwell Briquette & Power” operation employed many hundreds (history references cite around a thousand at peak) and formed part of the Latrobe Valley’s network of brown-coal power and fuel industries. The plant both supplied electricity and produced briquettes for domestic/industrial use and exports.

Ownership changes, privatisation & Energy Brix era:
The SECV’s Morwell operations became the government business Energy Brix Australia in the early 1990s during SECV restructuring (the Morwell briquette & power division was split out in 1993 and Energy Brix Australia was later sold in the 1990s). The site continued as a private company through the 2000s but struggled with market pressures.

Decline, incidents & final shut-down:
The briquette works suffered a major fire in 2003 that destroyed key conveyors and reduced briquette capacity drastically (leaving only one plant operating at very low effective capacity). The whole site was progressively wound down; the briquette factory was taken offline in August 2014 and the last boiler/turbine was taken out of service in September 2014. Around 2014–2015 the company went into administration and staff losses occurred.

Heritage dispute, liquidation & demolition:
After official closure in 2017, the derelict complex became the subject of a strong local heritage campaign. Heritage Victoria temporarily intervened to assess the site’s heritage value, but ultimately demolition was approved and the complex was progressively dismantled. The chimneys and large structures were pulled down in staged demolition events that were widely reported (stacks brought down in 2019–2021 phases). Asbestos remediation and other contamination made reuse/remediation expensive.

Significance:
The site has been assessed as one of Victoria’s more significant mid-20th-century power/briquetting complexes. It contained a largely intact mid-century briquetting plant assembly (rare in Victoria) and thus attracted conservation interest and a Conservation Management Plan. Despite this, practical remediation realities and safety concerns ultimately drove demolition.