Kearsley Power Station was a

coal-fired power station A coal-fired power station or coal power plant is a thermal power station which burns coal to generate electricity. Worldwide, there are about 8,500 coal-fired power stations totaling over 2,000 gigawatts Nameplate capacity, capacity. They ...

Stoneclough Stoneclough is a suburban area of Kearsley in the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, Greater Manchester, England. It is located south-east of Bolton, south-west of Bury and north-west of Manchester. It is located on the banks of the River Irw ...

, near

Kearsley Kearsley ( ) is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, Greater Manchester, England. The population at the 2011 census was 14,212. Historically part of Lancashire, it lies northwest of Manchester, southwest of Bury and south of ...

Bolton Bolton (, locally ) is a large town in Greater Manchester in North West England, formerly a part of Lancashire. A former mill town, Bolton has been a production centre for textiles since Flemish weavers settled in the area in the 14th ...

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 ...

. It was designed in 1927 by Dr H.F. Parshall for

the Lancashire Electric Power Company The Lancashire Electric Power Company was one of the largest private electricity companies in the UK. It was established in 1900 and generated and supplied electricity to 1,200 squares miles of Lancashire from 1905 until its abolition under nati ...

. The original installation was known as Kearsley 'A', comprising two

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 ...

(B.T.H.) turbo-alternators rated at 32.25 megawatts each. Further extensions became Kearsley 'B' (1936/38), with two more B.T.H. turbo-alternators each capable of producing 51.6 megawatts. Finally Kearsley 'C' (1949) was completed with two more B.T.H. machines rated at 52 megawatts each. The station closed in 1980 when only 'B' station remained operational. The 5 cooling towers were demolished during the week of 14 May 1985.

History

The power station opened in 1929 by the

Earl of Derby Earl of Derby ( ) is a title in the Peerage of England. The title was first adopted by Robert de Ferrers, 1st Earl of Derby, under a creation of 1139. It continued with the Ferrers family until the 6th Earl forfeited his property toward the en ...

, was to become highly regarded within the industry due to its excellent record of thermal efficiency. The power station went on to set new records for low coal consumption in relation to power output. Due to increased power demands there were a further two extensions made to the site in 1936 and 1949, one of which was a new cooling tower reported at the time to be the tallest in the world. The 1936 extension was attended by the

, son of the original

who had opened the company's Radcliffe Power Station 31 years previously. Originally 'A' Station had four cast iron chimneys but these were replaced by two brick built stacks, each 275 feet high. The later 'B' and 'C' stations each had two brick chimneys of 325 feet high. When completed the adjoining boiler houses totalled 255 yards and the entire buildings and chimneys used several million bricks. It is estimated that the six chimneys alone used at least 8 million bricks. By 1937 the station supplied a maximum load of 101,800 kW of electricity. When completed in 1949 there were 24 coal burning boilers at Kearsley Power Station, each separate station had eight boilers with six or seven boilers needed to operate each station on full load. There was always spare boiler capacity; the original operators the Lancashire Electric Power Company learning from its experiences at

Padiham Power Station Padiham Power Station was a coal-fired power station in Padiham, east Lancashire, England, which began operation in 1926 and generated power from 1927 until it was closed in 1993. Location The plant was located on the north bank of the Rive ...

which was under boilered. Kearsley 'A' Station boilers burned 5 tons of coal each on full load, and the larger 'B' and 'C' Station boilers consumed 8 tons of coal an hour on full load. Until 1970 there were continuous improvements to the boilers and plant at Kearsley to improve efficiency and reduce running costs. The electricity output from Kearsley LP and HP power stations was:Electricity Commission, ''Generation of Electricity in Great Britain year ended 31st December 1946''. London: HMSO, 1947. By 1965 the power station (as stated in a CEGB advertisement) employed around 500 people and could produce enough electricity to supply the area of

Farnworth Farnworth is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, Greater Manchester, England, southeast of Bolton, 4.3 miles south-west of Bury (7 km), and northwest of Manchester. Historically in Lancashire, Farnworth lies on the River Ir ...

and much of

recorded at 272,000 kilowatts of electricity. During 1965 the original 'A' station boilers were converted from coal burning to heavy oil firing. Each of the six boilers needed to run the turbines at full load consumed 5,500 gallons of oil per hour. In 1971 the boilers had a combined steam generating capacity of 3.2 million pounds per hour (403.2 kg/s). The steam conditions were 300/600 psi (20.7/41.4 bar) and 375/427 °C. The 'A' Station was mothballed after the Arab-Israeli conflict of the early 1970s that resulted in a huge increase in oil prices. In 1979 experiments were carried out at the station in burning the town of

's refuse to produce electricity. This was not the first occasion that the station had burned such refuse, in 1962

tobacco Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...

offal, battery cases, bathroom fittings and oil saturated

clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4). Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay pa ...

were burnt as fuel additives in an experiment to establish their

calorific value The heating value (or energy value or calorific value) of a substance, usually a fuel or food (see food energy), is the amount of heat released during the combustion of a specified amount of it. The ''calorific value'' is the total energy releas ...

. The station closed on 27 October 1980. By this time its generating capacity had been lowered to only 96 MW.

References

External links

{{North West Power Stations Coal-fired power stations in England Buildings and structures in the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton Power stations in North West England Former power stations in England