Richborough power station was a 336 MW power station close to the mouth of the River Stour near

Sandwich A sandwich is a food typically consisting of vegetables, sliced cheese or meat, placed on or between slices of bread, or more generally any dish wherein bread serves as a container or wrapper for another food type. The sandwich began as a po ...

, on the east coast of

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

. It was built on land within the Port of Richborough but being on the northern edge its site lies mostly within the neighbouring parish of Minster, Kent. It operated from 1962 to 1996; the towers were demolished on 11 March 2012. BFL Management Ltd, the current owners of the site plan to bring it back into use as the £750 million Richborough Energy Park.

History

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 Janua ...

started construction of the power station in 1958, with Unit 1 coming online in December 1962, and Unit 2 following in August 1963. It opened as a 336 MW coal-fired station, using coal from East Kent coalfield and elsewhere. The maximum total steam capacity of the station boilers was 2,580,000 lb/hr (325 kg/s). Steam pressure and temperature at the turbine stop valves was 1500 psi (103.4 bar) and 538 °C.''CEGB Statistical Yearbooks'' (various years, 1964-87). CEGB, London From 1964 to 1972 Richborough was one of the CEGB's twenty stations with the highest thermal efficiencies. The thermal efficiency was 30.88% (1964); 32.84% (1965); 33.83% (1966); 33.82% (1967); 32.9% (1968); 32.26% (1969); 32.62% (1970); 32.31% (1971); 32.03% (1972). It was converted to burn oil in summer 1971 and further converted in 1989 to burn a proprietary oil and water emulsion called

Orimulsion Orimulsion is a registered trademark name for a bitumen-based fuel that was developed for industrial use by Intevep, the Research and Development Affiliate of Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA), following earlier collaboration on oil emulsions with ...

, imported from

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

through Port Richborough. The site was also chosen as the site for an experimental 1 MW wind turbine, which was at that time the largest ever installed in the UK, with permission given in 1987, and the turbine becoming live in 1989. After growing concerns over the environmental effects of the Orimulsion fuel in the main power station, court action was taken in two separate actions, with both cases settled out of court. One of the turbo-alternators was decommissioned in 1994, this reduced the output capability to 228 MW. The station ceased generating electricity in 1996.

Electricity output

Electricity output from Richborough power station over the period 1963–1987 was as follows. Richborough annual electricity output GWh.The higher output in 1984/5 reflects the increased use of oil-fired power stations because of limitations on the availability of coal during the 1984-5 miners' strike.

Demolition

Following the plant closure, the majority of the equipment was removed during a strip out programme, which also saw the demolition of a number of the buildings, leaving only a few outbuildings, the office block and the landmark cooling towers and chimney standing. In controlled blasts, the three 97m

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 ...

and the 127m

chimney stack A chimney is an architectural ventilation structure made of masonry, clay or metal that isolates hot toxic exhaust gases or smoke produced by a boiler, stove, furnace, incinerator, or fireplace from human living areas. Chimneys are typ ...

were demolished at 9:07am on 11 March 2012. Some locals had campaigned to keep the towers, saying they formed part of the historical landscape and were used as a navigation point by boats wanting to enter the mouth of the River Stour, known to have a narrow channel of useful depth. The turbine hall was the last part of the power station to be demolished in 2016.

Future

The current owner of the site, BFL Management Ltd, plan to bring the site back into use as a £750 million green energy park. The national grid interconnector from the original power station is still in place, and is now the grid link for the offshore

Thanet Wind Farm The Thanet Wind Farm (also sometimes called Thanet Offshore Wind Farm) is an offshore wind farm off the coast of Thanet district in Kent, England. On commissioning it was the world's largest offshore wind farm. It has a nameplate capacity (max ...

. There are additional plans to create additional recycling and green energy facilities on site, including an

anaerobic digester Anaerobic digestion is a sequence of processes by which microorganisms break down biodegradable material in the absence of oxygen. The process is used for industrial or domestic purposes to manage waste or to produce fuels. Much of the fermen ...

, a waste processing plant, a biomass combined heat and power generator, a

pyrolysis The pyrolysis (or devolatilization) process is the thermal decomposition of materials at elevated temperatures, often in an inert atmosphere. It involves a change of chemical composition. The word is coined from the Greek-derived elements ''py ...

plant and a peak demand 30MW diesel generator. When fully operational, the park could provide up to 1,400MW of power, employing 100 full-time equivalent, with up to 500 jobs in the construction phase. National Grid are using part of the site for an interconnector with Belgium. The

Nemo Link Nemo Link is an HVDC submarine power cable between Richborough Energy Park in Kent, the United Kingdom and Zeebrugge, Belgium. The project is a joint venture between British National Grid and Belgian Elia. The electrical interconnector is the ...

, fully operational since 31 January 2019, is a 1000MW High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) 130 km undersea link with the Belgium transmission operator, Elia, to allow power to flow in both directions. This is the third link from the UK National Grid to Europe, the others being the Britned 1000MW link to the Netherlands commissioned in 2011 and the IFA 2000MW link to France commissioned in 1986.

In popular culture

The power station can be seen in several scenes of the 2008 film ''

Son of Rambow ''Son of Rambow'' is a 2007 comedy film written and directed by Garth Jennings and inspired by '' First Blood''. The film premiered on 22 January 2007 at the Sundance Film Festival. It was later shown at the Newport Beach Film Festival, Sea ...

'', and was the location for the 2003

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...

television series ''

Full Metal Challenge ''Full Metal Challenge'' was a television series made by RDF Media for Channel 4 in the UK and the Learning Channel in the USA. Hosted by series creator Cathy Rogers and Henry Rollins, the show was very similar to Rogers' last show, Scrapheap Ch ...

''. More recently a brief clip of the demolition of the cooling towers was used by

Alter Bridge Alter Bridge is an American rock band from Orlando, Florida. The band was formed in 2004 by vocalist and rhythm guitarist Myles Kennedy, lead guitarist Mark Tremonti, bassist Brian Marshall and drummer Scott Phillips. After their former ba ...

in their official music video for ' Addicted to Pain' off their 2013 album '' Fortress''.

References

{{South East powerstations Oil-fired power stations in England Power stations in South East England Coal-fired power stations in England Former power stations in England Energy infrastructure completed in 1962 1962 establishments in England 1996 disestablishments in England Buildings and structures demolished in 2012 Demolished power stations in the United Kingdom