Country England Commission date 1994 Tertiary fuel Fuel Oil | Location Bedfordshire Primary fuel Natural gas-fired | |
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Official name Little Barford power station Operators Central Electricity Generating Board, Npower | ||
Little Barford Power Station is a 740MWe gas-fired power station just north of the village of Little Barford (close to St Neots) in Bedfordshire, England. It lies just south of the A428 St Neots bypass and east of the Wyboston Leisure Park. The River Great Ouse runs alongside.
Contents
HistoryEdit
It is built on the site of a former coal-fired power station. This station had a generating capacity of 120 MW and was closed on 26 October 1981. Its demolition took place in 1986, an event covered by the children's TV programme Blue Peter. The two Parsons turbo-alternators were shipped to Malta. One was recommissioned as Unit 8 at Marsa Power Station and remained in service until 15 February 2015.
Construction of the gas-fired station started in 1994, and it opened in 1996. The company that built it, Swindon-based National Power, became Innogy plc in August 2000. That company was bought by the German electricity company, Essen-based RWE in March 2002, and became RWE npower. The station is now owned and operated by RWE Generation UK.
In 2002, a 12 MWe electrical storage facility was built by Regenesys Technologies Ltd (previously owned by Innogy plc but bought by VRB Power Systems in October 2004) which uses Polysulfide bromide flow batteries. Although the facility was never operated commercially, due to engineering issues in scaling up the technology.
CCGT Site HistoryEdit
The site was originally built by EGT, Atlantic Projects and Henry Boot, and went through a major upgrade in 2012
Original SpecificationEdit
The site is a CCGT type power station using natural gas. It originally had two General Electric Frame 9F gas turbine engines each producing 220MWe. Each of these had a Babcock Energy heat recovery steam generator which lead to one steam turbine produced by Alstom which produced 256MWe.
Upgraded SpecificationEdit
In 2012 the plant was upgraded to General Electric Frame 9FA+e gas turbine engines each producing 241MWe. They are still connected to the original Babcock Energy heat recovery steam generator which lead to the steam turbine produced by Alstom which now produces 265MWe
Black Start FacilityEdit
The site has a black start facility using a 17MWe General Electric Frame 5 gas turbine engine.
The station connects to the National Grid at the nearby 400 kV Eaton Socon substation.
The site employs around forty five people.