Country England Status Decommissioned Commission date 1970-72 | Location Rugeley Construction began 1965 Decommission date 8 June 2016 | |
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The Rugeley power stations were a series of two coal-fired power stations located on the River Trent at Rugeley in Staffordshire. The first power station on the site, Rugeley A power station was opened in 1961, but has since been closed and demolished. Rugeley B power station was commissioned in 1970 and closed on 8 June 2016. It had an output of 1,000 megawatts (MW) and had a 400 kilovolt (kV) connection to the national grid. The B station provided enough electricity to power roughly half a million homes.
Contents
History
Construction of the A station started in 1956. The station's generating sets were commissioned between 1961 and 1962. The station was the first joint venture between the Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB) and the National Coal Board (NCB). The station took coal directly from the neighbouring Lea Hall Colliery by conveyor belt. This was the first such arrangement in Britain. The colliery was put into production some 6 months before the first generating unit was commissioned in the power station. The station was officially opened on 1 October 1963 by Lord Robens of Woldingham and Sir Christopher Hinton.
The first of the five cooling towers to be completed at Rugeley in 1960 was the world's first large dry cooling tower, and the first large scale experiment with a design aimed at eliminating water loss. On occasions this tower was used by the RAF for parachute development. Rugeley A was also the first power station in Britain to be controlled entirely from a central control room. The total cost of building it was £30 million.
Construction of Rugeley B power station began in 1965, with completion of the station in 1972. With both stations in operation, 850 people were employed at the stations in 1983.
The two stations were initially operated by the Central Electricity Generating Board, but following privatisation in 1990, were handed over to National Power. The Lea Hall colliery was closed on 24 January 1991, meaning all coal burned in the stations needed to be delivered by rail. A couple of years later the closure of the A station began. Two of the station's generating units were decommissioned in 1994, with the other three following in 1995. Having burned nearly 42 million tonnes of coal in its lifetime, the station was demolished later in 1995.
In July 1996 the Rugeley B power station was bought by Eastern Generation, itself acquired by TXU Europe. Rugeley B was subsequently sold to International Power plc in July 2001. It remains under the same ownership, though International Power later merged with GDF Suez in 2011.
Construction of a Flue Gas Desulfurization plant started in early 2007 and it was commissioned at the B station in 2009. This allowed the station to comply with environmental legislation in force at the time and continue generating electricity.
146 people wereemployed in the station.
In March 2012 Rugeley Power Ltd announced it would be considering a conversion to run using biomass fuel. In December 2013, Rugeley Power Ltd said they have scrapped the proposed biomass conversion.
In February 2016 it was announced that the power station would close in the summer of 2016. An announcement by owners, Engie blamed a deterioration in market conditions which included a fall in market prices and increasing carbon costs. The closure will result in the loss of 150 jobs
Rugeley Power Station ceased all operations on Wednesday 8 June 2016. Decommissioning will be begin in June 2016. All buildings and structures on site are due for demolition lasting until around summer 2019.
A station
The station had five 120 MW generating sets which gave it a generating capacity of 600 megawatts.
B station
The Rugeley B station used two 500 MW generating sets, which could produce 8,760,000 MWh each year. The station usually burned 1.6 million tonnes of coal a year, producing 240,000 tonnes of ash. The station's boilers produced 1,100 tonnes of steam per hour, at a temperature of 568 degrees Celsius. Rugeley B also had two gas turbine generators installed, each of 25 MW capacity, which were used for emergency unit starts or could generate direct to the Grid when required.