Hastings Power Station

Hastings Power Station
Hastings Power Station
Country	England
Location	Hastings, East Sussex
Coordinates	50°52′07″N00°35′39″E / 50.86861°N 0.59417°E
Status	Decommissioned and demolished
Construction began	1964
Commission date	1966
Decommission date	Decommissioned late 1980s, demolished 2003
Owner(s)	Central Electricity Generating Board
Operator(s)	Central Electricity Generating Board
Thermal power station
Primary fuel	Distillate fuel oil
Turbine technology	Open cycle gas turbine
Chimneys	2 (200 ft; 61 m) reinforced concrete
Cooling source	Cooling water
Cogeneration?	No
Power generation
Units operational	2 × 55 MW
Make and model	AP4 Rolls-Royce/AEI sets
Nameplate capacity	110 MW
Annual net output	see chart in text
	[ edit on Wikidata]

Last updated September 28, 2023

Hastings Power Station was a gas turbine power station situated in Hastings in East Sussex, England. It was built on the site of the Broomgrove coal-fired power station. When the power station was completed in 1966 it had two 55-megawatt (MW) gas turbine generating sets; the first set was commissioned in January 1966 and the second two months later in March.

Specifications

Infrastructure

Building

The station consisted of a steel framed building clad with 14-inch (360 mm) thick brick walls without windows. The access doors were double-skinned to reduce noise emissions. The compressor intakes, at each end of the station, were at roof level. Silencing was provided at the air intakes by attenuators fitted between the exhaust gas ducting and the bases of the two chimney stacks.

Chimneys

Exhaust gases entered the exhaust casing at 450 degrees Celsius (840 °F) and left the 200 ft high chimneys at 300 degrees Celsius (570 °F). The chimneys were concrete, lined with heat- and acid-resistant bricks and a stainless steel 'cap'. About 1.4 million cubic feet per minute (670 m³/s) of gas containing 19% oxygen was exhausted from each chimney at a velocity of ~135 ft/s (41 m/s; 92 mph).

Cooling water

Cooling water for the station auxiliaries and alternator was drawn from a local pond, through a small independent mechanical draught-tower.

Emergency generator

An emergency Diesel generator-driven exciter set was housed in a separate building. In the event of a system shut down, the generator was capable of driving sufficient auxiliaries to start up, under black start conditions, and put on full load, using both main turbines consecutively.

Fuel oil

The gas turbine fuel oil supplies were held in five vertical main oil storage tanks, with a total capacity of 4,440 tonnes - equivalent to little more than 130 hours continuous generating at full load. Fuel was delivered by rail to the station's own siding located off the Hastings to Ashford Railway line, a few hundred metres north east of Ore railway station.

Power plant

Gas generators

Rolls-Royce gas generators were used. With little modification, these had been adapted to burn diesel oil with a high degree of reliability. They were developed from the well-tried aircraft engine used in the Comet and Caravelle aircraft. It had a single-shaft engine with a 17-stage axial flow compressor and cannular combustion chamber, before reaching the three-stage turbine.

Turbine

There were two 55 MW AP4 Rolls-Royce/AEI sets. Four gas generators in 'box' formation powered a two-stage turbine having discs of 2.5% nickel chrome and a stator of Nimonic 80A. The turbine blades were also forged from Nimonic 80A and were, at the time, the largest Nimonic forging ever made.

Alternator

The alternator was designed to operate at 3,000 rpm and was coupled to the turbine via a clutch. The main and pilot exciters were gear-driven from the end of the alternator shaft at 1,000 rpm.

Automatic control

The station was controlled from the Grid Control Centre at East Grinstead. But it could also be controlled locally. The main turbines and auxiliaries were controlled with manual overriding features. The main turbine sets could achieve a load of 10 MW from the pressing of a button within 2 minutes and 40 seconds. From the stabilizing load of 10 MW, the full capacity of 55 MW could be achieved in a matter of seconds.

This fast start-up of a power-station was particularly useful for supplying the national electricity grid at very short notice where sharp drops in supply occurred.

Electricity output

The electricity output, in GWh, from Hasting power station over the period 1968–82 was as follows:^[1]

Decline and closure

The station was built before the OPEC crisis of the 1973–74. As oil-based fuels increased in price, the station was deemed uneconomic and was mothballed in 1979. It received a reprieve when turbine Number 1 was recommissioned in 1983 (Hastings is not on the CEGB's Statistical Yearbook list of gas turbine power stations in 1984/5 or 1985/6^[1]) to compensate for a national deficit of power generators caused by the closure of some coal-fired stations during the coal miners' strike. By the late 1980s, the turbines and other plant were either stripped from the station or stolen by scrap dealers.^{[ citation needed ]} In 2000, an arson attack on illegally dumped rubber tyres within the building caused considerable damage.^[2]^[3] After the fire, poisonous blue asbestos was discovered which caused a panic within the local area and a 500-meter evacuation was ordered so the site could be investigated. The station was demolished in 2003.

Related Research Articles

Rye House Power Station is a 715 MW combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) power station close to Rye House railway station in Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire.

Kingsnorth power station was a dual-fired coal and oil power station on the Hoo Peninsula at Medway in Kent, South East England. The four-unit station was operated by energy firm E.ON UK, and had a generating capacity of 2,000 megawatts. It was capable of operating on either coal or oil, though in practice oil was used only as a secondary fuel or for startup. It was also capable of co-firing biofuel, up to a maximum of 10% of the station's fuel mix. A replacement power station, also coal-fired, was considered by owners E.ON, but plans were abandoned. The proposed replacement attracted substantial public protests and criticism, including the 2008 Camp for Climate Action.

The Littlebrook Power Station were a series of four oil and coal-fired power stations situated on the south bank of the River Thames, next to the Queen Elizabeth 2 Bridge and the Dartford Tunnel in Dartford, Kent. The final power station, Littlebrook D, ceased operating in March 2015, and has now been demolished.

Peterborough Power Station is a 360MW gas-fired power station at Eastern Industry, Fengate in the city of Peterborough, Cambridgeshire in the United Kingdom. It employs around forty people.

Great Yarmouth Power Station is combined cycle gas turbine power station on South Denes Road in Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, England, with a maximum output of 420 MW electricity, opened in 2001. It is built on the site of an oil-fired power station, built in 1958 and closed and demolished in the 1990s. A coal-fired power station was built in Great Yarmouth in 1894 and operated until 1961. The station is operated by RWE.

Shoreham Power Station is a 420MWe combined cycle gas-fired power station in Southwick, West Sussex. It was built on the site of the Brighton B Power Station.

Staythorpe C Power Station is a 1,735 MWe gas-fired power station at Staythorpe between Southwell and Newark-on-Trent in Nottinghamshire, England, between the River Trent and Nottingham to Lincoln railway line. The station was handed over to the owner RWE from Alstom Power with full commercial operation being achieved in December 2010. The official opening ceremony attended by Charles Hendry, Minister of State took place on 9 May 2011.

Pembroke B Power Station is a 2,200 MWe natural gas-fired power station near Pembroke in Wales. The power station was officially opened in September 2012 and is the largest gas-fired power station in Europe. It is also the largest power station to be built in the UK since Drax power station came online in 1986. Pembroke Power Station currently generates enough power to supply 3.5 million homes and businesses. It is operated by RWE.

The West Burton power stations are a pair of power stations on the River Trent near Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, England. West Burton A was a coal-fired power station, which was commissioned in 1966 and operated until 2023, and West Burton B is a combined cycle gas turbine power station, commissioned in 2013. West Burton A is owned by EDF Energy, while West Burton B is owned and operated by EIG Global Energy Partners.

The Tilbury power stations were two thermal power stations on the north bank of the River Thames at Tilbury in Essex. The 360 MW dual coal- and oil-fired Tilbury A Power Station operated from 1956 until 1981 when it was mothballed, prior to demolition in 1999. The 1,428 MW Tilbury B Power Station operated between 1968 and 2013 and was fueled by coal, as well as co-firing with oil and, from 2011, biomass. Tilbury B was demolished in 2016–19. Since 2013 three other power stations have been proposed or constructed in Tilbury.

Carrington Power Station is a combined cycle gas turbine power station, which was completed in Autumn 2016 and began commercial operation on 18 September 2016. It is located on the site of a former coal-fired power station, close to the villages of Carrington and Partington in the Greater Manchester Area and 12 km (7.5 mi) southwest of Manchester City Centre. The Manchester Ship Canal and the River Mersey run alongside the site, in Trafford, Greater Manchester, in North West England.

Ince Power Station refers to two demolished power stations near Ellesmere Port in Cheshire, North West England.

Northfleet Power Station was a coal-fired, later oil-fired, power station on the south bank of the Thames at Northfleet, Kent. Opened in 1963, it was converted to burn oil in 1972, and closed in 1991.

Bold Power Station refers to a series of two coal-fired power stations in Bold near St Helens, Merseyside, North West England. They were closed, decommissioned and demolished between 1981 and 1992, and a housing estate now occupies the site.

Ocker Hill Power Station was situated at Ocker Hill in Tipton, Staffordshire, at a point where the Walsall Canal intersected the L&NWR Wednesbury to Princes End railway line. It was opened in 1902 by the Midland Electric Corporation for Power Distribution Ltd.(MEC) and supplied electricity at 7 kV two phase 50 Hz to much of the Black Country. At the time of its building it was stated by the Stourbridge County Express that it was planned to be the largest power station in England. Although this may have been the original intention, it was never achieved.

Watford Power Station was a coal-fired power station situated in Watford's Riverside area. The station was built by the Watford Corporation Electricity Department starting with the installation of cables in 1899 with completion around 1900, near the banks of the River Colne. A gas turbine power station was commissioned in 1980.

Ribble Power Station was a coal-fired electricity generating station on the River Ribble in Penwortham near Preston, Lancashire, England. The station was built by the Corporation of Preston to replace a small privately-run generating station in the town. It supplied electricity to Preston and the surrounding area from 1923 until 1976. The station was expanded with new equipment in 1943–47 which remained in operation until the power station was closed in 1976 and was subsequently demolished.

Blackburn power stations are a series of electricity generating stations that have provided electric power to the town of Blackburn and the wider area from 1895 to the present. The first station in Jubilee Street, Blackburn began operating in 1895. A new larger station known as Blackburn East or Whitebirk power station was commissioned in 1921 and was rebuilt in stages over the period 1942 to 1955. Whitebirk station closed in 1976. The 60 MW Blackburn Mill Combined Cycle Gas Turbine (CCGT) power station has generated electricity since 2002. The Blackburn energy from waste (EfW) plant is currently (2020) being planned.

Leicester power stations are a series of electricity generating stations that have provided electric power to the City of Leicester and the wider area from 1894. The first station, located within Aylestone gas works, supplied electricity for street lighting. The city's new electric tram system was supplied from 1904 by a station at Lero which operated until 1930. A large coal-fired power station was constructed at Freemans Meadow in 1922 and was operational until 1976. Finally a gas turbine power plant was commissioned in 1976.

Trafford power station supplied electricity to the Trafford and Stretford areas of Greater Manchester, and to the national grid, from 1929 to 1976. The generating station was built by the Stretford and District Electricity Board which it operated until the nationalisation of the British electricity supply industry in 1948. The 60 megawatt coal-fired station was supplemented in 1952 with an experimental 15 megawatt gas turbine generating set.

References

1 2 CEGB Statistical Yearbook (various years). CEGB, London
↑ "History of Broomgrove Power Station". 1066 online. Retrieved 5 February 2020.
↑ "About Magazine Issue 15 Broomgrove - Power to the People!". 14 April 2002. Archived from the original on 15 October 2008.