Eggborough Power Station was a 2 gigawatt coal-fired generating plant in North Yorkshire, England. The station comprised four 500 megawatt units, with generating sets supplied by AEI. Construction began in 1962 and the first unit started generating electricity in 1967. Construction was completed by September 1970.

The station was commissioned and initially operated by the Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB) and became the property of National Power upon privatisation in 1990. British Energy bought the power station in 2000. British energy was purchased by EDF in 2009, however Eggborough’s lenders had the option to purchase the station the following April. On 1 April 2010, EDF transferred Eggborough to the plant’s bondholders. In January 2015 the sale of the power station to Czech Republic-based Energetický a průmyslový holding was finalised.

The low-pressure (LP) turbines of Units 1, 3 and 4 were replaced between 1993-1995 and the high-pressure (HP) turbines of Units 3 and 4 were replaced between 2005-2007. These upgrades increased the plants thermal efficiency and output.

The power station had one chimney which was 198.5m tall, was 21.6m wide at the base and tapered to 18.6m at the top. The chimney contained four 6.1m diameter flue ducts. There were 8 natural draught cooling towers, each 114m tall and 86.5m wide at the base.

In 1998 electrostatic precipitators were fitted to all units, and Flue Gas De-sulphurisation (FGD) was added to units 3 and 4 in 2005. Between 2005-2007 a boiler burner and combustion air system BOFA (Boosted Over Fire Air) commenced on Units 1, 3 and 4 to reduce Nitrogen Oxide emissions.

Eggborough and Ferrybridge power stations pumped ash from their boilers to a disposal site to the south of both stations, called Gale Common Ash Disposal Site. The site is owned by Eggborough Power, and was landscaped by Brenda Colvin into 160m hills with contours.

Eggborough faced the threat of closure for a few years, and in 2018 it was announced it would close by September that year. The power station stopped generating on 23 March 2018.

Buildings and Plant Detail

Eggborough Image Gallery

Visit the plant detail pages above to view more images from each area of the power plant

Eggborough Power Station had four 500 MW turbo-generator sets manufactured by AEI. The large turbine hall, as with the entire station, was an almost duplicate of Ironbridge, only with double the number of units. The HP heaters were situated between each unit and form a prominent feature of the turbine hall.

Each turbine line consisted 5 tandem compound cylinders; one high pressure (HP) turbine, one intermediate pressure (IP) turbine, followed by three low pressure (LP) turbines. Steam entered with a pressure of 158.6 bar at 566°C. When steam from the boilers had passed through the high pressure cylinder of the turbine, it was returned to the boiler, reheated and then circulated through the intermediate pressure cylinder before passing to the three low pressure turbines. It was then passed into the condensers where it was condensed back into water before being pumped back to the boiler.

The turbine house had two single span overhead travelling cranes, each of 115 tins capacity. A lifting beam between these two cranes could be used for lifting the heaviest load – the generator stator, which weighed 210 tons.

Eggborough Generating Units

List of power generating units at Eggborough Power Station:

Turbine Hall Pictures

Boiler Feed Pumps and Condenser Pictures

Gas Turbines

In power stations of this size it was the practice of the CEGB to install gas turbine generators to provide stand-by supplies for station auxiliaries, to provide starting facilities from ‘cold’, and to supplement the station output under peak load conditions. Four Bristol Siddeley 17.5 MW gas turbine units were installed at Eggborough. Each unit could be started and brought up to full load within two minutes. The gas turbines were decommissioned many years before the station closed.

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The boiler house at Eggborough Power Station contained the steam generating boilers and pulverised fuel mills. The four reheat boiler units were manufactured by Foster Wheeler / John Brown, were single furnace, front wall fired, natural circulation water tube boilers. The boilers had an evaporation capacity of 422 kg/s at 165 bar. The superheated steam temperature was 568°C.

When the station was on full load each boiler would burn about 200 tons of coal per hour, giving a total for the whole station of 19,200 tons per day. The walls of the furnace were composed of 2.5 inch bore steel tubes filled with water which was turned into steam by the heat from the furnace.

The coal passed through pulverising mills where it was ground to a fine powder before being blown into the furnaces by a heated air stream. The pulverised fuel mills were also manufactured by Foster Wheeler / John Brown. There were 24 PF mills, 6 per unit. The mills were horizontal ball mills (D9 type). The FD Fans and ID Fans were supplied by James Howden. The “Lagos” drag link coal feeders were supplied by Redler, and there were two per mill.

Boiler House Pictures

Pulverised Fuel Mill and Fuel Delivery Pictures

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The spacious and airy central control room at Eggborough contained the control desks for all four units, plus engineering and station services. Each unit had its own control station, wrapping around the corners of the square layout. Engineering and controls for station facilities were placed in the centre.

Between 1996-2000 the control desks at Eggborough were upgraded to incorporate Advanced Plant Management System (APMS) soft desks into the existing Cutlass interfaces. The system enabled the station to move from base load to multishifting in a fast and economical manner. A further upgrade completed in 2011 transferred the controls for the mills, draught and coal delivery to APACS soft desks.

Control Room Pictures

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The workshops at Eggborough Power Station were well equipped with various machines for metalworking. The workshop were located in a single story building connected to the main building, directly behind the admin block.

Workshop Pictures

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The 345 acre coal storage yard at Eggborough power station had a capacity of 1.75 million tons of coal, which is equivalent to 15 weeks supply. Fuel was originally drawn from the Yorkshire coalfields and consisted of small coals unsuitable for domestic use. The coal was delivered by rail, with a complete loop from the mainline enabling the coal trains to discharge while in motion, commonly know as a merry-go-round system. Each train carried about 1,000 tons of coal and could be unloaded and returned to the mainline in around 45 minutes.

A giant boom stacker was used to deliver coal to the stock yard at a rate of 3,000 tons per hour, and reclaimed using a bucket-wheel at 1,500 tons per hour. This was the first such system to be used in the UK.

Coal Handling Pictures

Documents and Schematics

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The Gale Common Ash Disposal Site is a facility for the processing and long-term storage of Pulverised Fuel Ash (PFA) from Ferrybridge and Eggborough power stations. The PFA is formed into hills and then landscaped.

The burning of pulverised coal in large-scale industrial processes such as power stations produces large quantities of ash, known as pulverised fuel ash, or PFA. Gale Common is the largest disposal scheme in the UK, capable of receiving 49 million m³ of PFA annually in slurry form from Eggborough and Ferrybridge power stations, located 5km and 7km away from the site, via underground pipelines. The site also received 16 million m³ of spoil from the nearby Kellingley Colliery.

The site has been developed in three phases – I to III. Stage I was completed in 1994, reaching a height of 69 metres, and has since been restored and landscaped. Stages II and III are not yet complete, however the closure of both Eggborough and Ferrybridge power stations means the site no longer receives any PFA.

Gale Common Photos

The Gale Common Extraction Project

PFA can be used as a recycled aggregate in the construction industry. There are a range of uses including road construction, building embankments and the manufacture of blocks, tiles and slabs.

Currently, up to 30,000 tonnes of PFA can be extracted from the stockpiles per year, and sold on to the customers in the construction industry. Plans have been submitted to develop the facilities at the site, allowing for up to 1 million tonnes of PFA to be extracted per year, for a period of 25 years. The extraction will take place from Stages II and III, leaving the completed Stage I as it is.