Spotlight on Morwell 

Morwell is a town in the Latrobe Valley area of Gippsland, in south-eastern Victoria, approximately 152 km east of Melbourne.  

It has a rich history tied to brown coal-mining and power generation. In the 20th century, Morwell and the Latrobe Valley region became a key hub for Victoria’s electricity supply, with large open-cut brown coal mines fuelling power stations. Built in the 1960s, the now closed Hazelwood Power Station once supplied much of the state’s power and was one of Victoria’s largest coal-fired plants

Today, Morwell is blooming beyond its industrial past and is also known for its award-winning rose garden. The Morwell Centenary Rose Garden sprawls over 2 hectares of parkland filled with more than 3500 roses. In 2009, this garden was presented with an Award of Garden Excellence by the World Federation of Rose Societies, only the second rose garden in Australia to be honoured with this prestigious award at the time.  

The Latrobe Valley region is undergoing a significant transition from its coal-dependent past toward a future focused on renewable energy.  

After the Hazelwood Power Station closed in 2017, its parent company, Engie, repurposed the site and built the Hazelwood Battery Energy Storage System (HBESS) - the first big battery to be built on an Australian coal site.  

The 150-megawatt battery has the capacity to store the equivalent of an hour of energy generated from the rooftop solar systems of 30,000 homes and can send extra electricity into the grid in times of peak demand, or store electricity that is not being used in times of low demand.   

The project is funded by Engie and Eku Energy, and will be built, operated, and maintained over a 20-year period by Fluence.