Neepsend power station supplied electricity to the

City of Sheffield The City of Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough in South Yorkshire, England. The metropolitan borough includes the administrative centre of Sheffield, the town of Stocksbridge and larger village of Chapeltown and part of the Peak ...

and the surrounding area from 1910 to 1976. The power station was owned and operated by the

Sheffield Corporation Sheffield City Council is the city council for the metropolitan borough of Sheffield in South Yorkshire, England. It consists of 84 councillors, elected to represent 28 wards, each with three councillors. It is currently under No Overall Contr ...

Electricity Department prior to the

nationalisation Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to pri ...

of the British electricity supply industry in 1948. It was operated in conjunction with

Blackburn Meadows Blackburn Meadows is an area of land just inside the Sheffield city border at Tinsley, England. It became the location of the main sewage treatment works for the city in 1884, and is now one of the largest treatment works in Britain. The treat ...

and Kelham power stations and was closed in 1976.

History

The Neepsend power station was built at

Owlerton Owlerton () is a suburb of the city of Sheffield, it lies northwest of the city centre near the confluence of the River Don and River Loxley. Owlerton was formerly a small rural village with its origins in the Early Middle Ages; it became par ...

(53°24’19”N, 1°29’08”W). The site was between the River Don and the

Great Central Railway The Great Central Railway in England was formed when the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway changed its name in 1897, anticipating the opening in 1899 of its London Extension. On 1 January 1923, the company was grouped into the ...

which provided water for cooling and access from the railway for the supply of coal. The station first supplied electricity in 1910. Further equipment was added in 1914 to meet the rising demand for electricity. Demand increased again during the First World War; by 1923 the station had a generating capacity of 65,000 kW. The station operated in conjunction with Blackburn Meadows (28,000 kW in 1923) and Kelham (5,500 kW in 1923) power stations, the latter provided electric current for the tram system. During the 1920s and 1930s there was only slow growth in electricity demand until the rearmament boom in the late 1930s when Neepsend and Blackburn Meadows power stations had further generating plant installed. The British electricity supply industry was

nationalised Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to pri ...

in 1948 under the provisions of the ''Electricity Act 1947'' (10 & 11 Geo. 6 c. 54). The Sheffield electricity undertaking was abolished, ownership of Neepsend power station was vested in the

British Electricity Authority The British Electricity Authority (BEA) was established as the central British electricity authority in 1948 under the nationalisation of Great Britain's electricity supply industry enacted by the Electricity Act 1947. The BEA was responsible for ...

, and subsequently the

Central Electricity Authority The Central Electricity Authority (CEA) was a body that managed and operated the electricity supply industry in England and Wales between 1 April 1955 and 31 December 1957. The CEA replaced the earlier British Electricity Authority (BEA) as a r ...

and the

Central Electricity Generating Board The Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB) was responsible for electricity generation, transmission and bulk sales in England and Wales from 1958 until privatisation of the electricity industry in the 1990s. It was established on 1 Januar ...

(CEGB). At the same time the electricity distribution and sales responsibilities of the Sheffield electricity undertaking were transferred to the

Yorkshire Electricity Board Yorkshire Electricity was an electricity distribution utility in England, serving much of Yorkshire and parts of Derbyshire, Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire. History Formed as the Yorkshire Electricity Board in 1948 as part of the nationalisat ...

(YEB). Further new generating plant was installed at Neepsend in 1948–50. Neepsend power station was closed on 25 October 1976.House of Commons, Written Answers, Coal-fired power stations 16 January 1984 Volume 52

Equipment specification

Plant in 1914

The plant installed in 1914 included a 10,500 kW Willans and Robinson

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 ...

and Diek Kerr alternator. The boilers were Stirling water-tube type each capable of evaporating 4,800 gallons an hour (21.8 m³/h). There were two

cooling towers A cooling tower is a device that rejects waste heat to the atmosphere through the cooling of a coolant stream, usually a water stream to a lower temperature. Cooling towers may either use the evaporation of water to remove process heat and ...

each cooled 330,000 gallons an hour (1500 m³/h).

Plant in 1923

By 1923 the plant comprised boilers delivering 1,240,000 lb/h (156.2 kg/s) of steam to: 3 × 2,000 kW steam turbo-alternators,

alternating current Alternating current (AC) is an electric current which periodically reverses direction and changes its magnitude continuously with time in contrast to direct current (DC) which flows only in one direction. Alternating current is the form in whic ...

(AC) 1 × 6,000 kW steam turbo-alternator AC 4 × 8,500 kW steam turbo-alternators AC 1 × 9,000 kW steam turbo-alternators AC 1 × 10,000 kW steam turbo-alternators AC These machines gave a total generating capacity of 65,000 kW alternating current (AC).

Plant in 1954

By 1954 the plant comprised: * Boilers: ** 5 ×

Stirling Stirling (; sco, Stirlin; gd, Sruighlea ) is a city in central Scotland, northeast of Glasgow and north-west of Edinburgh. The market town, surrounded by rich farmland, grew up connecting the royal citadel, the medieval old town with its me ...

160,000 lb/h (20.16 kg/s) tri-drum boilers ** 3 × Stirling 190,000 lb/h (23.9 kg/s) tri-drum boilers ** 3 × Mitchell 190,000 lb/h (23.9 kg/s) boiler Steam conditions were 625

psi Psi, PSI or Ψ may refer to: Alphabetic letters * Psi (Greek) (Ψ, ψ), the 23rd letter of the Greek alphabet * Psi (Cyrillic) (Ѱ, ѱ), letter of the early Cyrillic alphabet, adopted from Greek Arts and entertainment * "Psi" as an abbreviatio ...

and 850°F (43.1

bar Bar or BAR may refer to: Food and drink * Bar (establishment), selling alcoholic beverages * Candy bar * Chocolate bar Science and technology * Bar (river morphology), a deposit of sediment * Bar (tropical cyclone), a layer of cloud * Bar (u ...

and 454°C). There was a total steam raising capability of 835,000 lb/h (105.2 kg/s); steam was supplied to: * Generators: ** 2 × 30 MW

British Thomson-Houston British Thomson-Houston (BTH) was a British engineering and heavy industrial company, based at Rugby, Warwickshire, England, and founded as a subsidiary of the General Electric Company (GE) of Schenectady, New York, United States. They were kno ...

turbo-alternators, 3,000 rpm, 11.4 kV (installed 1936 and 1937) ** 2 × 50 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 ...

two cylinder turbo-alternator, 1,500 rpm, 11.4 kV (installed 1948 and 1950) The total generating capacity from 1950 was 160 MW at 11.4 kV. There were three Mitchell cooling towers, each with a capacity of 10.5 million gallons per hour (13.26 m³/s).

Operating data

Operating data for the period 1946–72 was:CEGB ''Annual Report'' 1961-63, CEGB ''Statistical Yearbook'' 1967 and 1972 Neepsend power station was closed on 25 October 1976.

References

{{Yorkshire Powerstations Demolished power stations in the United Kingdom Coal-fired power stations in England