King's Lynn Power Station is a

combined cycle 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 ...

natural gas power station near

King's Lynn King's Lynn, known until 1537 as Bishop's Lynn and colloquially as Lynn, is a port and market town in the borough of King's Lynn and West Norfolk in the county of Norfolk, England. It is located north of London, north-east of Peterborough, no ...

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 ...

, commissioned in 1997, and now owned by RWE. It was mothballed on 1 April 2012. It can generate 325 MW of electricity and employed 40 people. The site was reopened on 19 November 2019.

History

Construction of this power station began in October 1994 and was completed and started producing electricity in December 1997. The owners of the plant,

TXU TXU or txu may refer to: *TXU Corporation (formerly "Texas Utilities") a USA group companies **TXU Energy, energy generation subsidiary of TXU Corp. **TXU Energi, subsidiary of TXU Europe, formerly "The Energy Company" *txu, ISO:639 code for the K ...

sold the plant to

Centrica Centrica plc is a British multinational energy and services company with its headquarters in Windsor, Berkshire. Its principal activity is the supply of electricity and gas to consumers in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It is the largest su ...

in October 2001. The plant was mothballed on 1 April 2012 as older, less efficient, plants such as King's Lynn had become uneconomic due to high gas prices. In December 2019 RWE purchased the plant from Centrica. The plant joins the UK gas portfolio which is the largest and most efficient fleet in the UK.

Description

The Combined cycle gas turbine power station is located on Willows Business Park, Saddlebow, King's Lynn and uses gas from National Grid's National Transmission System.

Original Specification

The station was built with one single shaft 237 MW

Siemens Siemens AG ( ) is a German multinational conglomerate corporation and the largest industrial manufacturing company in Europe headquartered in Munich with branch offices abroad. The principal divisions of the corporation are ''Industry'', '' ...

V94.3 Gas driven Turbine with electrical

generator Generator may refer to: * Signal generator, electronic devices that generate repeating or non-repeating electronic signals * Electric generator, a device that converts mechanical energy to electrical energy. * Generator (circuit theory), an eleme ...

running at 3,000 rpm. The terminal voltage is 21 kV. There is a vertical type triple pressure heat recovery steam generator designed by CMI SA (Belgium)and supplied by CMI SA and

International Combustion International Combustion Limited was a major engineering business based in Derby offering products for the nuclear engineering industry. International Combustion Australia Limited was a separate non-affiliated company. History The Company was foun ...

(since 1997 known as ABB Combustion Services Ltd. The plant has one

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 ...

that is coupled to the generator via a self synchronizing

clutch A clutch is a mechanical device that engages and disengages power transmission, especially from a drive shaft to a driven shaft. In the simplest application, clutches connect and disconnect two rotating shafts (drive shafts or line shafts). ...

. The plant was built with one air cooled condenser which compromises of 61 cooling modules of fins, tubes and fan arranged in four by four configuration, connected to the 132 kV electrical distribution system. The original output of the station was 325

MWe The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James Watt ...

. The power station employs around forty-one staff.

Environmental performance

In 2006 it generated 900 GWh and emitted the following pollutants:- *Nitrogen oxides: 310,000 tonnes *Methane: 26,000 tonnes *Sulphur Dioxide <100,000 tonnes *Carbon Monoxide 13 tonnes *Carbon Dioxide 365,896 tonnes

King's Lynn B project

Centrica has an option to build about 1,000 MW of gas generation capacity near the present site, but has yet to decide if this will go ahead. In 2013 National Grid obtained consent to build a new 400 kV grid connection, but a decision on proceeding is awaited.

References

External links

Gas-fired power stations
Centrica Energy {{DEFAULTSORT:King's Lynn Power Station Buildings and structures in Norfolk Natural gas-fired power stations in England Power stations in the East of England King's Lynn