Fawley Power Station

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Fawley Power Station
File:Fawley Power Station 2012.JPG
Fawley Power Station
Location of Fawley Power Station in Hampshire
Country England
Location Hampshire, South East England
Coordinates Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
Commission date 1971
Decommission date 2013
Operator(s) RWE npower
Thermal power station
Primary fuel Oil-fired
grid reference SU473021

Fawley Power Station was an oil-fired power station located on the western side of Southampton Water, between the villages of Fawley and Calshot in Hampshire. Its 198 m (650 feet) chimney is a prominent (and navigationally useful) landmark, but it is not, as is sometimes claimed, the highest point in Hampshire (which is Pilot Hill).

Overview

The station, which in its final years was owned and operated by npower, was oil-fired, powered by heavy fuel oil. A pipeline connected the station to the nearby Fawley oil refinery. Because oil is more expensive than other fuels such as coal and natural gas, Fawley did not operate continuously, but came on line at times of high demand.

It was also connected to the National Grid with circuits going to Nursling and a tunnel under Southampton Water to Chilling then to Lovedean with a local substation at Botley Wood.

History

Fawley was built by Mitchell Construction[1] for the CEGB and was commissioned in 1971 as a 2,000 megawatt (MW) power station, with four 500 MW generating units, each consisting of a boiler supplying steam to a turbine that powers an associated generator. It is interesting as the cooling pumps were Britain's largest with a flow of 210000 GPM. One was driven by an experimental super-conducting electric motor.

Two units were mothballed in 1995,[2] leaving the station with a capacity of only 1,000 MW.

On 18 September 2012, RWE npower announced they would be shutting down Fawley power station by the end of March 2013, due to the EU Large Combustion Plant Directive.[3] The power station was duly shut on 31 March 2013. The decommissioning and demolition of the plant is expected to take several years, and the future of the site remains undecided.[4]

Proposed Fawley B station

CEGB plans for a coal-fired Fawley B station were not pursued following privatisation of the industry in the late 1980s.

Media

The round structure housing the control room for the station was used to represent the "World Control Center" building depicted in the 1975 movie Rollerball.[5]

Some scenes for the 2015 movie Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation were filmed on location at Fawley power station.[6]

See also

References

  1. Indictment: Power & Politics in the Construction Industry, David Morrell, Faber & Faber, 1987, ISBN 978-0-571-14985-8
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