Little Barford Power Station

Little Barford Power Station
File:Little Barford Power Station.jpg Little Barford power station in 2006
Location of Little Barford Power Station in England
Official name	Little Barford power station
Country	England
Location	Bedfordshire
Coordinates
Commission date	1994
Operator(s)	Central Electricity Generating Board RWE npower
Thermal power station
Primary fuel	Natural gas-fired
Tertiary fuel	Fuel Oil
Combined cycle?	Yes
grid reference TL185577

Little Barford Power Station is a 740MWe gas-fired power station just north of the village of Little Barford (close to St Neots) in Bedfordshire, England. It lies just south of the A428 St Neots bypass and east of the Wyboston Leisure Park. The River Great Ouse runs alongside.

History

File:St Neots Power Station 1.jpg

Little Barford coal-fired power station

It is built on the site of a former coal-fired power station. This station had a generating capacity of 120 MW and was closed on 26 October 1981.

Construction of the gas-fired station started in 1994, and it opened in 1996. The company that built it, Swindon-based National Power, became Innogy in August 2000. That company was bought by the German electricity company, Essen-based RWE in March 2002, now under the trading name npower (a former brand name of National Power).

In 2002, a 12MWe electrical storage facility was built by Regenesys Technologies Ltd (previously owned by Innogy but bought by VRB Power Systems in October 2004) which uses Polysulfide bromide flow batteries. Although the facility was completed, due to engineering issues in scaling up the technology, it was never fully commissioned. The fuel cell plant is still owned by RWE.

Demolished in 1989 and was broadcast on Blue Peter - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C50UTGiN7uE

Specification

It is a CCGT type power station using natural gas. It has two General Electric Frame 9FA gas turbine engines each producing 241MWe. Each of these has a Babcock Energy heat recovery steam generator which lead to one steam turbine produced by Alstom which produces 265MWe. The station connects to the National Grid at the nearby 400 kV Eaton Socon substation. It employs around fifty people. It has a black start facility using a 17MWe General Electric Frame 5 gas turbine engine. The site was originally built by EGT, Atlantic Projects and Henry Boot, and went through a major upgrade in 2012.

See also

• npower (UK)

External links

• Visitor centre
• Other CCGTs in eastern England