Country England Decommission date 1981 | Location Greenwich, London Nameplate capacity 100.5 MW | |
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Blackwall Point Power Station was a coal-fired power station on the east side of the Greenwich Peninsula, in London. An early station from the 1890s was replaced in the 1950s by a new station, which ceased operation in 1980. The station was constructed on a three-acre site at the north-west end of River Way to the south-east of the South Metropolitan Gasworks, since redeveloped as East Parkside.
History
The first Blackwall Point power station was built on the site of the East Greenwich tide mill by Blackheath and Greenwich Electric Light Co. and began to supply the area in 1900. By the time it closed in 1947 it had a capacity of 15 MW.
The replacement station which opened in 1952 was the first London power station designed to be fired exclusively by pulverised coal. Coal from overhead bunkers was ground to a powder by pressurised mills and transported to the furnace by air fans.
The station was equipped with three nominal 30 MW turbo alternators supplied by the English Electric Company, giving the station a generating capacity of 90 MW. Steam was supplied by three coal-fired Babcock & Wilcox boilers, with condenser cooling water taken from the river.
The first turbo-alternator set was commissioned in the summer of 1951, subsequent sets coming into use by the spring of 1952.
Blackwall Point was originally in the London Division of the British Electricity Authority (BEA), which later became the Central Electricity Generating Board.
The station closed on 26 October 1981 with a capacity of 86 MW. Today the only visible remains of the station is the coaling pier in the Thames.