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Didcot powerstation

I saw on the news earlier that this morning they blew up the last of Didcots cooling towers the demolition went ok but the dust cloud caused a flashover in the substation that is still used to supply parts or maybe a

all of Oxfordshire I bet the grid engineers were tearing there hair out after last weeks events

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0 Roy Bowdler over 4 years ago

This will be an increasingly common site in the next year as most of the 1960s generation of coal fired power stations with 500MW generators are demolished. Arguably amongst the most iconic at Ironbridge, given their proximity to a world heritage site, are due to go soon. Some people even wanted to save them as monument. These stations had useable life left, but burning coal to produce electricity has become unacceptable in the UK.

It wasn’t clear from the footage that I saw what caused the fault on local distribution system, but the two issues were clearly related. The fault was not on equipment belonging to National Grid who “Transmit” (in Bulk) typically at 400KV, rather than “distribute” (locally). Circa 25 years ago, I had a training facility and office on the site and remember passing the flowers outside Williams Formula 1 (before it relocated to The Grove) the Day after Ayrton Senna had been killed.

From an engineering perspective my main concern around the loss of major industries, is the loss of good local apprenticeships, employment prospects for Engineers and Technicians, plus all the spin offs for the local economy. Didcot is relatively fortunate in that respect, having other technology employment near by and of course a B station, but with far fewer employees. In some areas of the country the power station was either the sole major employer, or “last one standing” after closures in the Coal & Steel industries. I was lucky to secure an apprenticeship at my local Power Station.
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0 Roy Bowdler over 4 years ago

This will be an increasingly common site in the next year as most of the 1960s generation of coal fired power stations with 500MW generators are demolished. Arguably amongst the most iconic at Ironbridge, given their proximity to a world heritage site, are due to go soon. Some people even wanted to save them as monument. These stations had useable life left, but burning coal to produce electricity has become unacceptable in the UK.

It wasn’t clear from the footage that I saw what caused the fault on local distribution system, but the two issues were clearly related. The fault was not on equipment belonging to National Grid who “Transmit” (in Bulk) typically at 400KV, rather than “distribute” (locally). Circa 25 years ago, I had a training facility and office on the site and remember passing the flowers outside Williams Formula 1 (before it relocated to The Grove) the Day after Ayrton Senna had been killed.

From an engineering perspective my main concern around the loss of major industries, is the loss of good local apprenticeships, employment prospects for Engineers and Technicians, plus all the spin offs for the local economy. Didcot is relatively fortunate in that respect, having other technology employment near by and of course a B station, but with far fewer employees. In some areas of the country the power station was either the sole major employer, or “last one standing” after closures in the Coal & Steel industries. I was lucky to secure an apprenticeship at my local Power Station.
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Didcot powerstation

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