Greenwich Power Station

Infobox UK power station
static_

static_image_caption= Greenwich Power Station with The O₂ visible in the background.
os_grid_reference=TQ389781
latitude=51.4791
longitude=0.0000
country=England
region=London
shire_county=Greater London
operator=
fuel= Coal-fired
fuel_capacity=
secondary_fuel=Oil-fired
secondary_fuel_capacity=
opened=
closed=

Greenwich Power Station is an oil and gas (formerly coal)-fired power station on the River Thames at Greenwich in south-east London. The station is still available as a back-up electricity source for the London Underground. The station is an early example of a steel-framed building with a stone-clad brick cover.

History

The station was originally designed by the London County Council architects department, and built in two stages between 1902 and 1910, to provide power for the London Tram Network and Tube Railways which were being electrified at that time.

The station originally had a coal-fired boiler house and an engine room. This housed four compound reciprocating steam engines driving flywheel-type alternators with an output of 6,600 volts and 25 hertz. By 1910 the advantages of steam turbines were well known and four steam turbine alternators were installed in the second stage of the station's building programme. The reciprocating engines installed during first stage were replaced by steam turbines in 1922.

The two chimneys of stage one were convert|76|m|abbr=on high, but following objections from the nearby Royal Observatory, the stage two chimneys were reduced to only convert|55|m|abbr=on. [cite web
title = Greenwich Power Station
work = Port Cities
publisher =
url = http://www.portcities.org.uk/london/server/show/ConNarrative.65/chapterId/1563/Powering-the-City.html
accessdate = 2008-08-05]

The next major change to the station came in the mid-1960s when the steam turbines were replaced by Rolls Royce gas turbine generators, similar to those used in jet aircraft. These originally burned oil but were later converted to burn oil and gas. The generators are still housed in what was formerly the boiler house. They have a total capacity of 117.6 megawatts (MW), generated at 11,000 volts. This voltage can be increased to 22,000 volts for connection to the London Underground electricity system.

The station later became the backup station for Lots Road Power Station which supplied the London Underground. However, Lots Road was decommissioned on 21 October 2002, whereas Greenwich has been refurbished, and is now powered by gas. Power for the London Underground now normally comes direct from the National Grid.

A New Statesman Arts Diary story on 7 July 2006 suggested the power station as a possible site for a Museum of the Performing Arts, incorporating some of the collection of the defunct Museum of the Moving Image as well as London's Museum of Performance.

Operations

Coal was delivered to the large coal jetty in the river, which stoods on 16 doric style, cast iron columns. Coal was then sent to the white-painted storage bunkers on the west side of the station. The pier is now no longer used because the relatively small amount of oil used at the station now comes by road tanker. Burning gas and oil does not produce the amount of ash that burning coal does, so it is not removed via the jetty like coal ash used to be. The poet C. Day-Lewis used the space under the pier as the site of a murder mystery when writing thrillers under the name 'Nicholas Blake'.

References