Major maintenance works will be undertaken between now and October which should provide up to 100 jobs to the local and regional community, which represents roughly 100 contractors on a timeline more or less operating on temporary three-month contracts. 

The maintenance plans are bundled within the Anna Palaszczuk government's COVID-19 recovery plans. 

The maintenance project also comes with the recent Callide power station blackout at the forefront of the Queensland government's agenda relating to energy security. 

State energy minister Mick de Brenni said the importance of Wivenhoe cannot be understated. 

"When Callide C Power Station went offline in May, we were able to ramp Wivenhoe up to the point it was generating 530 megawatts over a four-hour period, helping to meet demand and stabilise the network," Minister de Brenni said. 

"This $14 million overhaul will include the repair and refurbishment of one of the 285-megawatt turbines, corrosion protection painting of machinery and pipes, and repairs to a transformer."

Since 2019, the Wivenhoe plant has been owned and operated by the government's own power retailer CleanCo, headed by CEO Dr. Maia Schweizer.

"We must maintain our generating assets in line with this change in operations to ensure we can continue to meet our mandate to provide reliable, affordable energy for our customers and the Queensland community," Dr Schweizer said. 

"The recent incident at Callide Power Station highlighted the important role fast ramping and flexible generation assets like Wivenhoe Power Station play in supplying energy reliably for Queensland."