Great Yarmouth Power Station is

combined cycle gas turbine A combined cycle power plant is an assembly of heat engines that work in tandem from the same source of heat, converting it into mechanical energy. On land, when used to make electricity the most common type is called a combined cycle gas turb ...

power station A power station, also referred to as a power plant and sometimes generating station or generating plant, is an industrial facility for the generation of electric power. Power stations are generally connected to an electrical grid. Many p ...

on South Denes Road in

Great Yarmouth Great Yarmouth (), often called Yarmouth, is a seaside town and unparished area in, and the main administrative centre of, the Borough of Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, England; it straddles the River Yare and is located east of Norwich. A pop ...

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...

, England, with a maximum output of 420 MW electricity, opened in 2001. It is built on the site of an

oil-fired power station A fossil fuel power station is a thermal power station which burns a fossil fuel, such as coal or natural gas, to produce electricity. Fossil fuel power stations have machinery to convert the heat energy of combustion into mechanical energy, wh ...

, 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 RWE AG is a German multinational energy company headquartered in Essen. It generates and trades electricity in Asia-Pacific, Europe and the United States. The company is Europe's most climate threatening Company, the world's number two in offsh ...

History

Great Yarmouth's first power station which used coal was built in 1894 and demolished in 1961 together with its iconic large chimney. In 1923 the AC plant comprised 3 × 75 kW, 3 × 150 kW and 2 × 300 kW reciprocating engines and generators, and 1 × 600 kW and 2 × 1,500 kW turbo-alternators. The DC plant comprised 2 × 200 kW and 1 × 400 kW reciprocating engines and generators. The total generating capacity of the station was 4,175 kW. The total output of the boiler plant was 58,000 lb/hr (7.31 kg/s) of steam. Electricity was available as single phase AC, 83.5 Hz at 200 and 100V and DC at 500 V. In 1923 the station generated 3.776 GWh of electricity, some of this was used in the plant, the total amount sold was 5.559 GWh. The revenue from sales of current was £48,038, this gave a surplus of revenue over expenses of £20,776. By 1959 the plant comprised one

Babcock & Wilcox Babcock & Wilcox is an American renewable, environmental and thermal energy technologies and service provider that is active and has operations in many international markets across the globe with its headquarters in Akron, Ohio, USA. Historicall ...

108,000 pounds per hour boiler delivering steam at 260 psi and 750 °F to one 7.5 MW and one 3.75 MW Brush-Ljunstrom turbo-alternators. Condenser water was drawn from the River Yare. The electricity output in the final years was: Before demolition a second much larger plant, built on the South Denes, had opened in September 1958.

South Denes power station

South Denes power station was sanctioned in July 1953 and was initially commissioned in 1957. It had an installed capacity of 252 MW and comprised 2 × 60 MW

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 ...

turbo-alternator and 2 × 60 MW Richardsons Westgarth turbo-alternators.''CEGB Statistical Yearbook'' (various dates). CEGB, London. In 1972 the 60 MW machine was up-rated to 64 MW. The four boilers were oil-fired and produced steam at a rate of 550,000 lb/hr (69.3 kg/s) at a pressure of 900 psi (62.1 bar) and 482 °C. Seawater was used for cooling. In 1961 the thermal efficiency of the station was 30.44 per cent. The output in GWh over the period 1961-82 was as follows. 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) UK miners' strike may refer to: *UK miners' strike (1893) *South Wales miners' strike (1910) * National coal strike of 1912 *UK miners' strike (1921) *UK miners' strike (1953) *UK miners' strike (1969), a widespread unofficial strike *UK miners' st ...

(see graph) after which it again remained unused until 1994 when demolition began. On 5 May 1997 the main building and its chimney were demolished via a

controlled explosion A controlled explosion is a method for detonating or disabling a suspected explosive device. Methods which are used to set off a controlled explosion include clearing the area and using a bomb disposal robot to attach a shaped charge to the susp ...

watched by thousands of people from the roads on the other side of the

River Yare The River Yare is a river in the English county of Norfolk. In its lower reaches it is one of the principal navigable waterways of The Broads and connects with the rest of the network. The river rises south of Dereham to the west to the villag ...

. The chimney was a landmark of Great Yarmouth, and had been the tallest structure in Norfolk. The current gas power station plant was built on the site by

Bechtel Bechtel Corporation () is an American engineering, procurement, construction, and project management company founded in San Francisco, California, and headquartered in Reston, Virginia. , the ''Engineering News-Record'' ranked Bechtel as the sec ...

for Great Yarmouth Power Limited (a specially formed company owned by BP,

Amoco Amoco () is a brand of fuel stations operating in the United States, and owned by BP since 1998. The Amoco Corporation was an American chemical and oil company, founded by Standard Oil Company in 1889 around a refinery in Whiting, Indiana, a ...

and

Arco ARCO ( ) is a brand of gasoline stations currently owned by Marathon Petroleum after BP sold its rights. BP commercializes the brand in Northern California, Oregon and Washington, while Marathon has rights for the rest of the United States an ...

)''Great Yarmouth Power: a new power station or a new millennium'', publicity brochure, Great Yarmouth Power Ltd., c.2000 between 1998 and 2001. The project was projected to cost £185 million. The plant was operated by GE International, trading as IGE Energy Services (UK) Ltd and was then bought by

(trading as npower) in November 2005 for £155m.

Specification

It is a CCGT type power station that runs on

natural gas Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbo ...

supplied via a 12-inch diameter high pressure (69 bar) pipeline from the

Bacton Gas Terminal The Bacton Gas Terminal is a complex of six gas terminals within four sites located on the North Sea coast of North Norfolk in the United Kingdom. The sites are near Paston and between Bacton and Mundesley; the nearest town is North Walsham. T ...

27 miles to the north-west. It has one 265MWe

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable energ ...

Frame 9 (9001FA+E)

gas turbine A gas turbine, also called a combustion turbine, is a type of continuous flow internal combustion engine. The main parts common to all gas turbine engines form the power-producing part (known as the gas generator or core) and are, in the directi ...

with the exhaust gas heating a Doosan

heat recovery steam generator A heat recovery steam generator (''HRSG'') is an energy recovery heat exchanger that recovers heat from a hot gas stream, such as a combustion turbine or other waste gas stream. It produces steam that can be used in a process (cogeneration) or u ...

, leading to a 150MWe Hitachi

steam turbine A steam turbine is a machine that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam and uses it to do mechanical work on a rotating output shaft. Its modern manifestation was invented by Charles Parsons in 1884. Fabrication of a modern steam turbin ...

. At 420MW, it generates enough electricity for around 350,000 homes. It has a

thermal efficiency In thermodynamics, the thermal efficiency (\eta_) is a dimensionless performance measure of a device that uses thermal energy, such as an internal combustion engine, steam turbine, steam engine, boiler, furnace, refrigerator, ACs etc. For a he ...

of 57%. The terminal voltage of the plant is 19kV, which meets the distribution network of

EDF Energy EDF Energy is a British integrated energy company, wholly owned by the French state-owned EDF (Électricité de France), with operations spanning electricity generation and the sale of natural gas and electricity to homes and businesses through ...

via a transformer at 132kV. The steam condenser uses about 9 tonnes of water a second drawn from the River Yare and discharged out to sea.

References

External links

Other CCGTs in eastern England

Acquisition of the power station by RWE at the Office of Fair Trading
{{RWE Natural gas-fired power stations in England Buildings and structures in Norfolk Power stations in the East of England Demolished power stations in the United Kingdom Coal-fired power stations in England RWE