Elland Power Station was a coal-fired power station situated adjacent to the Manchester to Wakefield railway line and on a loop of the River Calder, north east of the town of

Elland Elland is a market town in Calderdale, in the county of West Yorkshire, England. It is situated south of Halifax, by the River Calder and the Calder and Hebble Navigation. Elland was recorded as ''Elant'' in the Domesday Book of 1086. It h ...

West Yorkshire West Yorkshire is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. It is an inland and upland county having eastward-draining valleys while taking in the moors of the Pennines. West Yorkshire came into exi ...

. The station occupied a site of some 65 acres.

History

The construction of Elland Power Station was planned in 1945. It was designed and built by the then Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB), Northern Project Group. Building work began in 1951 and the project cost £10 million. The first generating unit began generating electricity on 7 August 1959, but the station did not officially open and begin generating at full capacity until 28 April 1961. The station used three

Metropolitan Vickers Metropolitan-Vickers, Metrovick, or Metrovicks, was a British heavy electrical engineering company of the early-to-mid 20th century formerly known as British Westinghouse. Highly diversified, it was particularly well known for its industrial ...

180 MW generating sets. Later in the 1960s, the station won an award for its clean and efficient operation. There were three boilers (two John Brown, one Yarrow) each rated for 69 kg/s of steam; steam conditions were 62.06 bar and 482 °C. The cooling towers were built by Davenport Engineering. The generating capacity, electricity output and thermal efficiency were as shown in the table. Coal from the Yorkshire coalfields was delivered by train on the adjacent

Calder Valley Line The Calder Valley line (also previously known as the Caldervale line) is a railway route in Northern England between the cities of Leeds and Manchester as well as the seaside resort of Blackpool. It is the slower of the two main rail routes ...

and moved around the site using 0-4-0 shunters. ''Elland No. 1'', a CEGB 0-4-0 diesel shunter is preserved at

Mangapps Railway Museum The Mangapps Railway Museum (previously Mangapps Farm Railway Museum) is a heritage railway centre located near Burnham-on-Crouch in Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cam ...

, Burnham-on-Crouch, Essex. On 22 November 1971, the station's conveyor belt was destroyed in a fire. After the UK's electric supply industry was

privatised Privatization (also privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation when ...

in 1989, the station was operated by PowerGen. The station closed in 1991 before being demolished in 1996. The station's site is now the site of Lowfields Industrial Estate although the associated switching substation was retained and remains in use.

References

External links

Image on Historic England
{{Yorkshire Powerstations Buildings and structures in Calderdale Coal-fired power stations in England Power stations in Yorkshire and the Humber Elland 1959 establishments in England 1991 disestablishments in England Energy infrastructure completed in 1959 Buildings and structures demolished in 1996 Demolished power stations in the United Kingdom Former coal-fired power stations in the United Kingdom Former power stations in England