Victorian Electricity Generation Water Usage

Conclusion: Victoria uses more than 5% of its total storage capacity each year on power generation. This is enough water for 3 million homes.

Calculation:
500MW = typical 8.3e9 litres/year, 250000 homes worth of water. (1)

Brown Coal plants:
Hazelwood 1600MW according to (2), uses 37.5ML / day
Loy Yang A 2200MW B 1050 MW
Yallourn 1450MW
Total 6300MW
(wikipedia)

-> 1e11 (100 billion) litres of water each year (6300/500 * 8.3e9). by (1)
-> 5e10 (50 billion) litres of water each year (37.5e6 * 365 * 6300/1600) by (2) (unverified)

Strangely it is ridiculously hard to find more accurate information about how much water each plant uses, where it comes from, whether it is recycled etc.

Victorian storage capacity 1,773,000 ML. (1.7e12 litres). (w:Melbourne Water)

1e11 / 1.7e12 = 5.8% of total storage used each year -> conclusion.
5e10 / 1.7e12 = 2.9% of total storage used each year -> 2 million homes.

Resulting question: why don't the power plants use recycled water? colder water will make the plants more efficient, so maybe the alpine water is important to them.

Sources:

1. http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/coalvswind/c02b.html
2. wiki/Hazelwood_Power_Station,_Victoria#Water