Firming Queensland › Banana Shire

Callide has no battery yet. Here's why Biloela should want one.

Callide B's two 350 MW units have run near Biloela since 1988. The state has kept them going to at least 2031 and says it will consider going further. What decides that is the condition of the plant, and what wears a coal unit out is being throttled back every midday and hauled back up every evening. A battery takes that work off the units. Tarong has one. Kogan Creek has one. Stanwell is building one. Callide does not.

The station, in numbers

Callide Power Station is two plants on one site near Biloela, fed with black coal from the Callide Mine next door. Callide B is owned outright by CS Energy, a Queensland Government corporation. Callide C is a 50/50 joint venture between CS Energy and IG Power, and CS Energy runs it.

700 MWCallide B: two 350 MW units, B1 and B2, commissioned 1988
844 MWCallide C: two supercritical units, C3 and C4, commissioned 2001
5.8 Mtof black coal a year at most, from the Callide Mine next door
288employees at the station

CS Energy finished an $85 million overhaul and capital works program at Callide B in December 2024, including a major overhaul of Unit B1. The next major overhaul of Unit B2 is booked for 10 September to 5 November 2027. That is what a station looks like when its owner intends to keep running it.

The 2031 question

The Queensland Energy Roadmap says Callide B "has been extended at least to 2031 (subject to adequate system and market outcomes)". It also says: "For Callide B Power Station, optionality of extension beyond 2031 will also be considered."

The state is spending $1.6 billion over five years on its own coal, hydro and gas stations through the Electricity Maintenance Guarantee, and CS Energy is auditing the condition of each unit to work out what it would take to run them longer. The less a unit is cycled between now and then, the better that audit reads.

Storage helps "manage minimum system load, supporting coal unit reliability".Queensland Energy Roadmap, Queensland Treasury, 2025

The battery Callide doesn't have yet

300 MWTarong: on site since February 2026, built by Stanwell
100 MWChinchilla: beside Kogan Creek since July 2024, built by CS Energy
300 MWStanwell: four hours of storage, on site, due early 2027
0 MWat Callide today

The state's other coal stations already have storage working beside them. CS Energy put the Chinchilla Battery next to Kogan Creek, its other coal station, to use the site's grid connection, water, land and workforce. Callide has a grid connection of its own and a workforce of 288 already on site.

The next battery for Callide does not have to be inside the fence. Edify Energy, a private company, holds a Banana Shire Council permit (2023) and federal environmental approval (July 2024) for a project north-east of Biloela that includes up to 200 MW / 800 MWh of battery storage. That is four hours, the same as Stanwell's. It is still in development. Built, it plugs into the same network Callide feeds, charging through the midday surplus and discharging into the evening peak. That is the work that keeps B1 and B2 running flat. The private batteries already running in Queensland. Who pays, and how long they last.

A Callide day, before and after

Before. On a sunny Callide Valley day, rooftop and utility solar floods the grid from about ten in the morning. Prices go to nothing, and the coal units get pulled down to minimum load and held there through the afternoon. Around five the sun drops off, demand climbs, and the units are ramped hard back to full output. Every one of those cycles heats and cools boiler tubes, headers and turbine casings. Do it every day for years and you get tube leaks, cracked headers and unplanned trips. That, not calendar age, is what shortens a unit's life.

After. A battery soaks up the midday surplus instead of the units backing off, then feeds it into the evening peak instead of the units ramping. The units run flatter. A battery also holds the grid's frequency, a job that used to mean running units below full output to keep headroom, and it covers a trip in a fraction of a second.

One battery does not flatten the whole day for four units. It takes the worst of it off. The Queensland Energy Roadmap plans for up to 3.8 GW of storage by 2030 alongside the coal fleet. Callide B's case for running past 2031 is stronger with some of that storage on the Callide lines.

What locals can do

Ask Banana Shire Council to treat grid storage as firming infrastructure in its planning scheme, assessed like a substation, not like a generator.
When a battery is proposed near the Callide lines, back it, and say why: it is what keeps B1 and B2 running.
Tell your state member and your councillors that Callide should be the next station with a battery, and that 2031 should not be the end of Callide B.
If you work at the station, the mine or a contractor, sign up below. We want to hear how the units are running.

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