Didcot A-B Coal Power Station
7:06 AM
Didcot A Coal Power Station
Didcot A Coal Power Station is a coal and gas fired power station, designed by architect Frederick Gibberd. A vote was held in Didcot and surrounding villages on whether the power station should be built. There was strong opposition from Sutton Courtenay but the yes vote was carried, due to the number of jobs that would be created in the area. Building was started on the 2,000 MWe power station for the CEGB during 1964, and was completed in 1968 at a cost of £104m, with up to 2400 workers being employed at peak times. It is located on a 300 acres (1.2 km2) site formerly part of the Ministry of Defence Central Ordnance Depot. The main chimney is 650 ft (200 m) tall with the six cooling towers 325 ft (99 m) each. The station uses four 500MWe generating units. In 2003 Didcot A burnt 3.7Mt of coal.
The station burns mostly pulverised coal, but also co-fires with natural gas. Didcot was the first large power station to be converted to have this function. In addition, a small amount of biomass, such as sawdust, is now burnt at the plant. This was introduced to try to depend more on renewable sources following the introduction of the Kyoto Protocol and, in April 2002, the Renewables Obligation. It is hoped that biomass could replace 2% of coal burnt. In 1996 and 1997, Thales UK was awarded contracts by Innogy (now npower) to implement the APMS supervisory and control system on all of the four units, then allowing to have optimised emissions monitoring and reporting. Between 2005 and 2007 Didcot installed overfire air systems on the four boilers to reduce emissions of Nitrous Oxide.This ensured compliance with the Large Combustion Plant Directive.
Some ash from Didcot A is used to manufacture building blocks at a factory on the adjacent Milton Park and transported to Thatcham (near Newbury, Berkshire) for the manufacture of Thermalite aerated breeze blocks using both decarbonized fly and raw ash, but most is mixed with water and pumped via a pipeline to former quarries in Radley.
Didcot B Coal Power Station
Didcot B is the newer sibling initially owned by National Power, constructed from 1994-7 by Siemens and Atlantic Projects, and uses a (CCGT) type power plant to generate up to 1,460MWe of electricity. It opened in July 1997. There has been some controversy locally that the access for the site was originally agreed to be via the site entrance for Didcot A on Basil Hill Road', however the 'temporary' access using the former National Grid stores access road is still in use.
Specification
It consists of two 680MWe modules, each with two 230MW SGT5-4000F (former V94.3A) Siemens gas turbines and two heat recovery steam generators, built by International Combustion (since 1997 known as ABB Combustion Services Ltd), and a steam turbine.
| Didcot Power Station | |
|---|---|
| Country | England |
| Locale | Oxfordshire, South East England |
| Commission date | 1968 |
| Operator(s) | Central Electricity Generating Board (1968-1990) National Power (1990-2000) Innogy (2000-2002) RWE npower (2002-present) |
| Power station information | |
| Primary fuel | Coal-fired |
| Secondary fuel | Natural gas-fired |
| Tertiary fuel | Biofuel |
