Ironbridge Power Station
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Ironbridge Power Station (also known as Buildwas Power Station) is a coal fired power station in Shropshire, England.
The power station lies in Buildwas parish, in Shrewsbury and Atcham borough. It is on the banks of the River Severn near the Ironbridge Gorge World Heritage Site, where the Industrial Revolution began.
The power station was opened in 1965 for the state-owned Central Electricity Generating Board. In 1990 the CEGB was split into different companies for privatisation and Buildwas power station became part of Powergen. In 2001 Powergen was taken over by E.ON, an energy company based in Germany.
The 970 MWe coal fired power station is the only major generator of electricity in Shropshire. The plant consumes about 1.2 million tonnes of coal, 48,000 tonnes of biomass and 20,000 tonnes of oil per year and generated 2,990 GWh of electricity in 2004.[1]
Coal is delivered to the power station via a branch line railway through Madeley, Ironbridge and Coalbrookdale, crossing the River Severn via the grade 2 listed Albert Edward Bridge. The railway branch joins the Wolverhampton - Shrewsbury main railway line at Madeley Junction. Passenger services on the branch line were withdrawn in the 1960's and it is kept open solely to carry coal to the power station. However, the Telford Steam Railway intend to take over one of the tracks between the power station and Lightmoor junction as part of their southern extension from Horsehay through Doseley.
The 4 cooling towers of the power station dominate the skyline, but the station has often been considered to be more aesthetically pleasing than most. From Ironbridge, the surroundings of the station are hidden by wooded hills, and the cooling towers were deliberately constructed from red coloured concrete rather than the usual yellow-brown in order to make them look more attractive. The towers cannot be seen at all from the world famous landmark, the Iron Bridge.
Environmental group Friends of the Earth claim that it is presently (2006) the second worst polluter in the United Kingdom per mega-watt output. [2]
According to [3] the power station is expected to close by 2015.
[edit] References
- ^ Shropshire County Council (2005)
- ^ Carbon Dinosaurs. Friends of the Earth. Archived from the original on 2004-10-19.
- ^ Memorandum submitted by Mitsui Babcock to the House of Commons
