Derwent Power Station is a mothballed 214MWe gas-fired power station on Holme Lane near

Spondon Spondon is a ward of the city of Derby. Originally a small village, Spondon dates back to the Domesday Book and it became heavily industrialised in the 19th and early 20th centuries, with companies such as British Celanese. History The n ...

Derby, England Derby ( ) is a city and unitary authority area in Derbyshire, England. It lies on the banks of the River Derwent in the south of Derbyshire, which is in the East Midlands Region. It was traditionally the county town of Derbyshire. Derby gain ...

. It is built on the site of the former Spondon Power Station

History

The current Derwent power station was built on the site of the former Spondon power stations. Spondon A was built in the 1920s by

British Celanese British Celanese was a chemical company based in England. Formed in 1916, it survived as an independent company until 1957 when it became a subsidiary of Courtaulds. History The origins of the company lie with two brothers, Henri and Camille ...

. It was sold to the Nottingham & Derby Power Company in 1929. It was then nationalised before eventually being sold to

Courtaulds Courtaulds was a United Kingdom-based manufacturer of fabric, clothing, artificial fibres, and chemicals. It was established in 1794 and became the world's leading man-made fibre production company before being broken up in 1990 into Courtaulds ...

. Spondon A eventually closed in the early 1980s. In 1959, the Spondon H process steam station opened alongside Spondon A. Spondon H had a capacity of 30 MW using three 10 MW sets, and was unique among the

CEGB 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 ...

s power stations as it was designed primarily to produce steam to supply the British Celanese plant after passing through the back-pressure steam turbines. The station had two single-flue concrete chimneys of 96 m (315 ft) in height, one being demolished in the early 1990s the other in the early 2000s. The station also had four concrete cooling towers of 45 m (150 ft) in height located 0.25 miles to the east, these were in practice rarely used. They were demolished in 1984. The electricity output of the station was as follows.

Derwent power station

Derwent power station was originally built for Courtaulds Chemicals and was opened on 1 June 1995 by

Tim Eggar Timothy John Crommelin Eggar (born 19 December 1951) is a British businessman and former politician. He holds positions on the boards of multiple organisations including Shiplake College and Cape plc, and was the Conservative MP for Enfield ...

, the Energy Secretary. It was owned 17.5% by Courtaulds, 33% by Mission Energy Company (UK) Ltd, and 49.5% by Southern Electric Power Generation (now owned by

Scottish and Southern Energy SSE plc (formerly Scottish and Southern Energy plc) is a multinational energy company headquartered in Perth, Scotland. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange, and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. SSE operates in the United Kingdom and ...

). The nearby works are now owned by Accordis. The 33% stake of Mission Energy was sold to

International Power Engie Energy International, formerly International Power, is a multinational electricity generation company headquartered in Newcastle upon Tyne, and a wholly owned subsidiary of the French company Engie (formerly GDF Suez). The company was form ...

. The other stakes are now owned by

Mitsui is one of the largest ''keiretsu'' in Japan and one of the largest corporate groups in the world. The major companies of the group include Mitsui & Co. ( general trading company), Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, Nippon Paper Industries ...

. Near to the plant is Celanese Acetates Ltd, which used to be

, which does not have any ownership of the power station. The textiles site was built in 1916 to provide waterproofing for aircraft wings, known as British Cellulose & Chemical Manufacturing and made

cellulose acetate In biochemistry, cellulose acetate refers to any acetate ester of cellulose, usually cellulose diacetate. It was first prepared in 1865. A bioplastic, cellulose acetate is used as a film base in photography, as a component in some coatings, and ...

and Acetic anhydride. This came from techniques invented by the Swiss chemist, Henri Dreyfus. British Celanese and Courtaulds merged in 1957. Courtaulds was bought by Sara Lee in 2000 following a

hostile takeover In business, a takeover is the purchase of one company (the ''target'') by another (the ''acquirer'' or ''bidder''). In the UK, the term refers to the acquisition of a public company whose shares are listed on a stock exchange, in contrast to t ...

. The station later traded as Derwent Cogeneration Ltd.

Specification

Derwent was a combined cycle power station that ran 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 ...

. Most of the power was generated for Celanese Acetate site next to the power station. Only around 50MWe is put into the National Grid; and the heat produces steam for the textile plant. This produced electricity for around 180,000 homes; enough for Derby and beyond. It has four

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 en ...

Frame 6 MS6001B

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 directio ...

and a 59MWe steam turbine and

surface condenser A surface condenser is a water-cooled shell and tube heat exchanger installed to condense exhaust steam from a steam turbine in thermal power stations. These condensers are heat exchangers which convert steam from its gaseous to its liquid stat ...

. It is a combined heat and power (CHP) plant.

Closure

In 2012, it was announced that the Combined Heat and Power plant (CHP) was to stop supplying steam to the adjacent

textile Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, different fabric types, etc. At first, the word "textiles" only referred to woven fabrics. However, weaving is not the ...

plant due to it closing. The gas station also closed later that year with a loss of around 30 jobs. Since 2012, the station has been retained for future use. In 2018, Peel Environmental purchased the mothballed station in the hope of recommencing power generation at the site. However, these plans did not go ahead, and the station is due to be demolished in 2021 as it is "no longer commercially viable".

References

External links

International Power

The history of the locomotive; Spondon No. 1

{{East Midlands powerstations Energy infrastructure completed in 1995 Buildings and structures in Derby Natural gas-fired power stations in England Power stations in the East Midlands Cogeneration power stations in England