Commencing as a coal-fired power station in the 1960s, then converting to a 218-megawatt gas-fired facility, Mica Creek will be placed into cold storage from 8:00am tomorrow, on New Year's Day.
To continue operating competitively the station would have required a life-extending overhaul, unable to compete with the more modern Diamantina Power Station which will now take over Mica Creek's remaining contracts.
Mount Isa is not connected to the national electricity network and has historically relied on Stanwell's Mica Creek Power Station for its electricity, located 6 kilometres from the city in Queensland's north-west.
The station has been supplying just two commercial contracts, which both expired today.
Staff to gradually leave site
Mica Creek site manager Paul Smith said today was a sad day for many employees who had worked at the site for decades, such as Anthony Caslick who had been with the company for 45 years and Bill Handley who had 31 years under his belt.
Mr Smith said 29 of the 32 remaining employees will progressively leave the site until only three remain by July 2021.
"We have a natural gas pipeline so we need to make sure that's maintained in really good condition if we're going to cold store," he said.
"Our site environmental authority is really important to us, and making sure that we comply with everything we can and everything we need to in regard with that.
"So we'll continue on, there will be three permanent employees staying at the site to maintain and manage those systems. I don't think they'll have time to get bored."
In its prime, the Mica Creek Power Station had more than 200 employees which dropped to 85 in 2012 and then gradually decreased to the 32 which remained until today.
Mr Smith said the business relied on the two expiring commercial contracts.
"We operate a little bit differently in the north-west compared to the rest of Australia," he said.
"Most of Australia is connected to the national electricity grid, but we're not, we're an isolated system.
"We supply to individual customers based on individual contracts."
The shut down
With those contracts now expired, Mr Smith said the power station will have made its final commitments at around 8:00am on New Year's Day when the machine loads will be lowered.
"As we lower them down, the Diamantina Power Station will progressively increase its unit loads and they'll take over that generation from us," Mr Smith said.
"Once we're at a point where that handover is complete we'll trip our units and that will be the last time that these machines will run in the north-west."
Mr Smith said the process is less cinematic than the public might expect with no big switch or fading down of lights.
Instead, he said it was a "small button" to be pushed.
