Great Yarmouth Power Station

Great Yarmouth Power Station
Great Yarmouth power station in May 2007
Country	England
Location	Norfolk, East of England
Coordinates
Commission date	1894
Operator(s)	npower
Thermal power station
Primary fuel	Natural gas-fired
Tertiary fuel	Coal-fired
grid reference TG530050

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 420MW 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. Another power station was built in Great Yarmouth in 1894 and operated until 1961.

History

Great Yarmouth's first power station which used coal was built in 1894 and demolished in 1961 together with its iconic large chimney. Before demolition a second much larger plant, built on the South Denes, had opened in September 1958. This plant produced power until it was first scheduled to close in 1984 before briefly being used again during the UK miners' strike (1984–1985) after which is again remained unused until 1994 which demolition began. On 5 May 1997 the main building a chimney were demolished via a controlled explosion watched by thousands of people from the roads on the other side of the River Yare. The demolition of the 360-foot (110 m) chimney, which was a landmark of Great Yarmouth, and which had been the tallest structure in Norfolk was controversial.

The current gas power station plant was built on the site by Bechtel for BP between 1998 and 2001. The plant was operated by GE International, trading as IGE Energy Services (UK) Ltd and was then bought by RWE (trading as npower) in November 2005 for £155m.

Specification

It is a CCGT type power station that runs on natural gas. It has one 265MWe General Electric Frame 9 (9001FA+E) gas turbine with the exhaust gas heating a Doosan heat recovery steam generator, leading to a 150MWe General Electric steam turbine. It has a dedicated pipeline to connect to the Interconnector gas pipeline and the Bacton Gas Terminal a few miles to the north-west. At 420MW, it generates enough electricity for around 350,000 homes. It has a thermal efficiency of 57%. The terminal voltage of the plant is 19kV, which meets the distribution network of EDF Energy via a transformer at 132kV. The steam condenser uses about 9 tonnes of water a second from the River Yare.

External links

• Other CCGTs in eastern England
• Acquisition of the power station by RWE at the Office of Fair Trading