Hydro Tasmania’s production and maintenance manager Jesse Clark said the tour had been extremely popular.

“Tasmanian hydropower has obviously been a very topical issue over the past nine months or so [and] we’re pleased to give members of the community a rare opportunity to see first-hand how we generate clean renewable energy,” he said.

Mr Clark said it was rewarding to share his work with family, friends and members of the community.

“I think it’s one of these things where you go to work everyday and you don’t get to share that with too many people,” he said.

“There’s also a lot of people in Tassie who have a connection with Hydro, their parents or uncles or other family members worked at Hydro and it’s great to be able to open it up for them to have a look at.”

The power station was commissioned in 1955 and has had one major upgrade in 2005, during which two of the four turbines were upgraded.

“What we have is four turbines, four units, and their combined total is around 94 Megawatts producing power into the national market,” Mr Clark said.

Water from a dam on the South Esk River is diverted through a 3.2 kilometre tunnel to the station and is discharged into the Tamar River at sea level. Tours were also held at Gordon Power Station and John Butters Power Station earlier in October.