Derwent Power Station

History

The current Derwent power station was built on the site of the former Spondon power stations. Spondon A was built in the 1920s by British Celanese. It was sold to the Nottingham & Derby Power Company in 1929. It was then nationalised before eventually being sold to Courtaulds. Spondon A eventually closed in the early 1980s.

In 1959, the Spondon H process steam station opened alongside Spondon A. Spondon H had a capacity of 30 MW using three 10 MW sets, and was unique among the CEGBs power stations as it was designed primarily to produce steam to supply the British Celanese plant. The station had two single-flue concrete chimneys of c.'315 in height, one being demolished in the early 1990s the other in the early 2000s. The station also had four concrete cooling towers of c.'150 in height located c.0.25 miles to the east, these were in practice rarely used. They were demolished in 1984.

Derwent power station was originally built for Courtaulds Chemicals and was opened on June 1, 1995 by Tim Eggar, the Energy Secretary. It was owned 17.5% by Courtaulds, 33% by Mission Energy Company (UK) Ltd, and 49.5% by Southern Electric Power Generation (now owned by Scottish and Southern Energy). The nearby works are now owned by Accordis. The 33% stake of Mission Energy was sold to International Power. The other stakes are now owned by Mitsui. Near to the plant is Celanese Acetates Ltd, which used to be British Celanese, which does not have any ownership of the power station. The textiles site was built in 1916 to provide waterproofing for aircraft wings, known as British Cellulose & Chemical Manufacturing and made cellulose acetate and Acetic anhydride. This came from techniques invented by the Swiss chemist, Henri Dreyfus. British Celanese and Courtaulds merged in 1957. Courtaulds was bought by Sara Lee in 2000 following a hostile takeover. The station currently trades as Derwent Cogeneration Ltd.

Specification

It is a combined cycle power station that runs on natural gas. Most of the power is used for the works next to the power station. Only around 50MWe is put into the National Grid; and the heat produces steam for the textile plant. This produces electricity for around 180,000 homes; enough for Derby and beyond. It has four General Electric Frame 6 MS6001B gas turbine and a 59MWe steam turbine and surface condenser. It is a combined heat and power (CHP) plant.

Latest information is that this Combined Heat and Power plant (CHP) plant is to stop supplying steam to the adjacent textile plant from 2011, the steam supply is to be provided by a new gas fired CHP plant to be built by the textile firm on land it owns adjacent to the existing Derwent Power Station.ref article in the local press