The power station is situated on the Upper River Derwent catchment and is owned and operated by Hydro Tasmania.

Water is diverted from the Tungatinah Lagoon by a short tunnel with surge shaft and then descends 290 metres (950 ft) through five steel penstocks to the power station.

[2][3] The power station was commissioned between 1953 and 1956 by the Hydro Electric Corporation (TAS) and the station has five Boving Francis turbines, with a total generating capacity of 125 megawatts (168,000 hp) of electricity.

[4] Within the station building, each turbine has a semi-embedded spiral casing and water flow is controlled via a spherical rotary inlet valve and a relief valve designed to prevent spiral casing over pressure.

The station output, estimated to be 579 gigawatt-hours (2,080 TJ) annually,[1] is fed to TasNetworks' transmission grid via five 11 kV/110 kV three-phase GEC generator transformer to the outdoor switchyard.