Hastings Power Station was a

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 ...

power station A power station, also referred to as a power plant and sometimes generating station or generating plant, is an industrial facility for the generation of electric power. Power stations are generally connected to an electrical grid. Many ...

situated in

Hastings Hastings () is a large seaside town and borough in East Sussex on the south coast of England, east to the county town of Lewes and south east of London. The town gives its name to the Battle of Hastings, which took place to the north-west ...

in East Sussex,

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. It was built on the site of the Broomgrove coal-fired power station. When the power station was completed in 1966 it had two 55-

megawatt 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 ...

(MW) gas turbine generating sets; the first set was commissioned in January 1966 and the second two months later in March.

Specifications

Infrastructure

;Building The station consisted of a steel framed building clad with thick brick walls without windows. The access doors were double-skinned to reduce noise emissions. The compressor intakes, at each end of the station, were at roof level. Silencing was provided at the air intakes by attenuators fitted between the exhaust gas ducting and the bases of the two chimney stacks. ;Chimneys Exhaust gases entered the exhaust casing at 450 degrees Celsius (840 °F) and left the 200 ft high chimneys at 300 degrees Celsius (570 °F). The chimneys were concrete, lined with heat- and acid-resistant bricks and a stainless steel 'cap'. About 1.4 million cubic feet per minute (670 m³/s) of gas containing 19% oxygen was exhausted from each chimney at a velocity of ~. ;Cooling water Cooling water for the station auxiliaries and alternator was drawn from a local pond, through a small independent mechanical draught-tower. ;Emergency generator An emergency

Diesel generator A diesel generator (DG) (also known as a diesel Genset) is the combination of a diesel engine with an electric generator (often an alternator) to generate electrical energy. This is a specific case of engine generator. A diesel compression-ig ...

-driven exciter set was housed in a separate building. In the event of a system shut down, the generator was capable of driving sufficient auxiliaries to start up, under black start conditions, and put on full load, using both main turbines consecutively. ;Fuel oil The gas turbine fuel oil supplies were held in five vertical main oil storage tanks, with a total capacity of 4,440 tonnes - equivalent to little more than 130 hours continuous generating at full load. Fuel was delivered by rail to the station's own siding located off the Hastings to Ashford Railway line, a few hundred metres north east of

Ore railway station Ore railway station serves Ore in East Sussex, England. It is on the Marshlink Line, and train services are provided by Southern, with a single peak hour service operated by Southeastern. Third rail 750 V DC electrification from Hastings ...

Power plant

;Gas generators

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gas generators were used. With little modification, these had been adapted to burn

diesel oil Diesel fuel , also called diesel oil, is any liquid fuel specifically designed for use in a diesel engine, a type of internal combustion engine in which fuel ignition takes place without a spark as a result of compression of the inlet air and t ...

with a high degree of reliability. They were developed from the well-tried aircraft engine used in the

Comet A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that, when passing close to the Sun, warms and begins to release gases, a process that is called outgassing. This produces a visible atmosphere or coma, and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena ...

and Caravelle

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. It had a single-shaft engine with a 17-stage axial flow compressor and cannular combustion chamber, before reaching the three-stage turbine. ;Turbine There were two 55 MW AP4 Rolls-Royce/AEI sets. Four gas generators in 'box' formation powered a two-stage turbine having discs of 2.5% nickel chrome and a stator of

Nimonic Nimonic is a registered trademark of Special Metals Corporation that refers to a family of nickel-based high-temperature low creep superalloys. Nimonic alloys typically consist of more than 50% nickel and 20% chromium with additives such as titani ...

80A. The turbine blades were also forged from Nimonic 80A and were, at the time, the largest Nimonic forging ever made. ;Alternator The

alternator An alternator is an electrical generator that converts mechanical energy to electrical energy in the form of alternating current. For reasons of cost and simplicity, most alternators use a rotating magnetic field with a stationary armature.Gor ...

was designed to operate at 3,000 rpm and was coupled to the turbine via a clutch. The main and pilot exciters were gear-driven from the end of the alternator shaft at 1,000 rpm.

Automatic control

The station was controlled from the Grid Control Centre at East Grinstead. But it could also be controlled locally. The main turbines and auxiliaries were controlled with manual overriding features. The main turbine sets could achieve a load of 10 MW from the pressing of a button within 2 minutes and 40 seconds. From the stabilizing load of 10 MW, the full capacity of 55 MW could be achieved in a matter of seconds. This fast start-up of a power-station was particularly useful for supplying the national electricity grid at very short notice where sharp drops in supply occurred.

Electricity output

The electricity output, in GWh, from Hasting power station over the period 1968–82 was as follows:''CEGB Statistical Yearbook'' (various years). CEGB, London

Decline and closure

The station was built before the OPEC crisis of the 1973–74. As oil-based fuels increased in price, the station was deemed uneconomic and was mothballed in 1979. It received a reprieve when turbine Number 1 was recommissioned in 1983 (Hastings is not on the CEGB's Statistical Yearbook list of gas turbine power stations in 1984/5 or 1985/6) to compensate for a national deficit of power generators caused by the closure of some coal-fired stations during the coal miners' strike. By the late 1980s, the turbines and other plant were either stripped from the station or stolen by scrap dealers. In 2000, an arson attack on illegally dumped rubber tyres within the building caused considerable damage. After the fire, poisonous blue asbestos was discovered which caused a panic within the local area and a 500-meter evacuation was ordered so the site could be investigated. The station was demolished in 2003.