Castle Donington Power Station

Castle Donington Power Station was a coal-fired power station situated on the River Trent near Castle Donington, Leicestershire, 5 miles (8.0 km) south-east of Derby. Construction began in 1951, and the station opened in 1958.[4]

Castle Donington Power Station
Castle Donington Power Station
CountryEngland
LocationLeicestershire, East Midlands
Coordinates52.847769°N 1.358511°W / 52.847769; -1.358511
StatusDecommissioned
Construction began1951
Commission date1956–58[1][2]
Decommission date1994[3]
Operator(s)Central Electricity Generating Board
(1958–1990)
Powergen
(1990–1994)
Thermal power station
Primary fuelCoal
Chimneys2
Cooling towers4
Cooling sourceRiver water and cooling towers
Power generation
Units operational6 × 100 MW
Make and modelMetropolitan-Vickers
Units decommissionedAll decommissioned
Nameplate capacity600MW
Annual net output2,072 GWh (1980-81)

grid reference SK433280

History

The station had six 100 megawatt turbo-generators manufactured by Metropolitan-Vickers and boilers by Babcock & Wilcox. The boilers operated on pulverised coal and delivered 630 kg/s of steam at 103.4 bar and 566°C. Station cooling was by river water and four cooling towers. Castle Donington was one of the CEGB's twenty steam power stations with the highest thermal efficiency; in 1963–4 the thermal efficiency was 32.30 per cent, 31.57 per cent in 1964–5, and 31.45 per cent in 1965–6.[5] In 1980/1 the station sent out 2,072.453 GWh, the thermal efficiency was then 29.34 per cent. It was initially operated by the Central Electricity Generating Board. Following privatisation in 1990, the station was operated by Powergen. In 1993, four of the station's generating units were decommissioned. In 1994, the remaining two units were taken out of operation and the station closed down.[6]

Castle Donington power station was supplied with coal via a branch off the adjacent Trent and Weston railway line. Rail facilities included an east-facing junction on the mainline, four loading arrival sidings, a gross-weight weighbridge, a four-track set of unloading hoppers, a tare-weight weighbridge, and four empty departure sidings.[7]

The cooling water system enabled the abstraction of up to 113,700 m3/h (25 million gallons per hour) of water from the River Trent. There was provision for up to 81,800 m3/h (18 million gallons per hour to be pumped from the outlet channel through cooling towers back to the inlet channel for reuse.[8]

The power station's internal railway system had the last steam locomotives in regular industrial usage in Great Britain.[9] The locos went into preservation upon the power station's closure with No. 1 now on the Midland Railway in Derbyshire.

The annual electricity output, in GWh, of Castle Donington was:[5][10][11]

Electricity output of Castle Donington
Year 1957 1958 1959-60 1960-1 1961-2 1962-3 1963–4 1964–5 1965–6 1966–7 1971–2 1978–9 1980–1 1981–2
Electricity supplied, GWh 130.9 1,255 4,208 4,215 4,081 4,439 4,505 4,196 3,778 3,652 1,919 2,062.8 2,072.4 2,090

The power station has since been demolished and a distribution centre for Marks & Spencer has been developed on the site.

References
  1. "Castle Donington Conservation Area Appraisal and Study" (PDF). North West Leicestershire District Council. Retrieved 2008-03-04.
  2. Clarke, Jonathan (2013). High merit: existing English post-war coal and oil-fired power stations in context. London: Historic England. p. 10.
  3. "NATIONAL GRID COMPANY PLC – CONSTRUCTION OF A NEW SECTION OF 400Kv OVERHEAD LINE, CASTLE DONINGTON ELECTRICITY SUB-STATION (NORTH WEST LEICESTERSHIRE DISTRICT)" (PDF). 13 March 2003. Retrieved 30 September 2020.
  4. "Power to the People". Retrieved 30 September 2020.
  5. CEGB (1966). CEGB Statistical Yearbooks 1964, 1965, 1966, 1972, 1982. London: CEGB. p. 20.
  6. "Generation disconnections since 1991". nationalgrid.com/. 2003. Archived from the original on 5 December 2012. Retrieved 5 October 2008.
  7. Jacobs, Gerald (1990). London Midland Region Track Diagrams. Exeter: Quail. pp. 6C. ISBN 0900609745.
  8. Sheail, John (1991). Power in Trust. Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 65. ISBN 0-19-854673-4.
  9. "The train now departing, Castle Donington power station 1988". You Tube. Retrieved 30 July 2018.
  10. Garrett, Frederick C. (ed) (1959). Garcke's Manual of Electricity Supply vol.56. London: Electrical Press. pp. A-117.CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)
  11. GEGB Annual report and accounts, various years
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