Close Power Station was a coal-fired power station situated on

Newcastle upon Tyne Newcastle upon Tyne ( RP: , ), or simply Newcastle, is a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. The city is located on the River Tyne's northern bank and forms the largest part of the Tyneside built-up area. Newcastle is ...

Quayside The Quayside is an area along the banks ( quay) of the River Tyne in Newcastle upon Tyne (the north bank) and Gateshead (south bank) in Tyne and Wear, North East England, United Kingdom. History The area was once an industrial area and busy co ...

, in modern

Tyne and Wear Tyne and Wear () is a metropolitan county in North East England, situated around the mouths of the rivers Tyne and Wear. It was created in 1974, by the Local Government Act 1972, along with five metropolitan boroughs of Gateshead, Newc ...

. The station was built by the

Newcastle and District Electric Lighting Company The Newcastle and District Electric Lighting Company (abbreviated to DISCo) was a pre-nationalisation, private electricity supply company, based in Newcastle upon Tyne in North East England. The company was set up in 1889 by Charles Algernon Pa ...

in 1902, near their

Forth Banks Power Station Forth Banks Power Station was a coal-fired power station in North East England. It was situated in the city centre of Newcastle upon Tyne on Forth Banks, a street to the rear of Newcastle Central station. Put up in a disused factory building ...

Specification and operation

The station was of a

steel frame Steel frame is a building technique with a "skeleton frame" of vertical steel columns and horizontal I-beams, constructed in a rectangular grid to support the floors, roof and walls of a building which are all attached to the frame. The developm ...

and brick clad construction with the boiler house and turbine hall built alongside each other, a modern design at the time. The station had no rail sidings and so instead coal was brought to it by cart from the colliery. Coal was also delivered by

barge Barge nowadays generally refers to a flat-bottomed inland waterway vessel which does not have its own means of mechanical propulsion. The first modern barges were pulled by tugs, but nowadays most are pushed by pusher boats, or other vessels ...

, via a nearby boat landing on the River Tyne. The coal-fired five Stirling boilers, each with 600 HP capacity. Two further boilers were installed in 1907. Coal was fed into the boilers by overhead hoppers, which used automatic stokers. Conveyor belts were used to transport coal to the boilers, and to take ash away from them. The station initially used one

Parsons Parsons may refer to: Places In the United States: * Parsons, Kansas, a city * Parsons, Missouri, an unincorporated community * Parsons, Tennessee, a city * Parsons, West Virginia, a town * Camp Parsons, a Boy Scout camp in the state of Washingt ...

steam turbine to drive two 500 kilowatt (kW)

dynamo "Dynamo Electric Machine" (end view, partly section, ) A dynamo is an electrical generator that creates direct current using a commutator. Dynamos were the first electrical generators capable of delivering power for industry, and the foundati ...

s, giving the station a total generating capacity of 1,000 kW. However, by 1907 the station had been extended to generate using two DC Parsons 1,500 kW sets, fitted with vacuum augmenters, and a further two 1,000 kW generators. This gave the station a total generating capacity of 5,000 kW. Condensing water was pumped directly from the River Tyne, which it was situated upon. 1,540 customers would come to the power station's shops to have their meters tested and repaired.

History

The station was built after the neighbouring

required frequent expansion, as demand grew. It was built on a large adjacent piece of land. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

there was a suspected unexploded bomb found in a coal dump at the station, however it was discredited. The station continued operating until roughly 1948, when the UK's electrical supply industry was nationalised. The station has since been demolished, and an

electric substation A substation is a part of an electrical generation, transmission, and distribution system. Substations transform voltage from high to low, or the reverse, or perform any of several other important functions. Between the generating station and c ...

now stands on the site.

References

{{North East Power Stations Power stations in North East England Buildings and structures in Newcastle upon Tyne