Ferrybridge C Power Station in West Yorkshire was commissioned by the Central Electricity Generating Board and was built between 1962 to 1968. The ‘C’ Station was the third power station to be built at Ferrybridge. The ‘A’ Station building remains and is now used by RWE as their national heavy engineering facility. The ‘B’ Station was demolished after its closure in 1992.

Ferrybridge C had a capacity of 2 GW from four x 500 MW generating sets supplied by CA Parsons. The CEGB chose Ferrybridge to trail the new 500 MW units, the world’s first single-line turbogenerator sets of this size.

In addition to the main generating units, Ferrybridge C Power Station was built with four gas turbines with a combined capacity of 68 MW. Two of the four gas turbines were retired in the late 1990s, reducing their capacity to 34 MW.

Coal was supplied initially via barges on the Aire and Calder Navigation Canal, utilising a barge tippler capable of unloading 210 ton barges in nine minutes. The tippler was retired in the late 1990s and an automated system was built to receive deliveries via rail.

Cooling water was drawn from the River Aire and after circulating through the power station, was cooled using the station’s 8 cooling towers. The towers were 115m high. The plant had two 198m chimneys. Ash was transported as a slurry via underground pipeline to the Gale Common Ash Disposal Site.

Flu Gas Desulphurisation was fitted to units 3 and 4 in 2009. This allowed those units to meet the requirements of the Large Combustion Plant Directive (LCPD), while units 1 and 2 were closed on 28^th March 2014. In 2013 SSE announced the station would opt out of the EU Industrial Emissions Directive. Ferrybridge C generated its last electricity on 23^rd March 2016. The reasons stated were “irreparable damage” caused by a major fire in 2014, and that the station was now a loss-making operation, predicted to lose £100 million over the following five years.

Buildings and Plant Detail

Ferrybridge C Image Gallery

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

2014 Fire at Ferrybridge C

On 31^st July 2014 a serious fire broke out in the Flue Gas Desulphurisation (FGD) Plant for unit 4. Unit 3 was also affected by the fire. Neither unit was operational at the time due to maintenance. Unit 3 returned to service on 29^th October 2014, and unit 4 on 15^th December 2014. The fire had completely destroyed the FGD of unit 4, meaning that unit had to burn very low sulphur coal in order to comply with emissions regulations. The supply of very low sulphur coal ran out in March 2015, at which point unit 4 was retired. The one remaining unit was closed a year later, the reason stated by SSE was “irreparable damage” caused by the fire resulting in a loss-making operation.

Cooling Tower Collapse

The cooling towers at Ferrybridge C power station were arranged in two parallel staggered rows, 350ft apart. Each cooling tower was 350ft high, with diameters at the base of 350ft, at the throat 165ft and at the top 180ft. All were constructed of reinforced concrete shells 5 inches thick. Construction of the cooling towers was completed in 1964.

On the morning of Monday 1^st November 1965 a gale was blowing at Ferrybridge, with a wind speed of 44 m/s at the top edge of the cooling towers (a wind speed that occurs around once every 5 years at Ferrybridge). Vortices formed between cooling towers of the first row, loading the towers of the second row. The vortex frequency was approximately the same as the natural frequency of the towers (0.6 Hz).

The vortex loading caused three of the four towers in the second row to collapse. An eyewitness said that some towers where moving like belly dancers. The second tower from the southern edge of the leeward row (tower 1B) collapsed first, at about 10.30am. The one immediately north-west of it (tower 1A) collapsed about 10 minutes later and the one north-west of that tower (tower 2A) at 11.20am. All three were in the leeward row and were fully completed.

The collapsed towers were replaced and the remaining towers were strengthened with an extra thickness of reinforced concrete.

The turbine hall at Ferrybridge C Power Station contained 4 model TC6F136 turbo generator sets manufactured by CA Parsons. The CEGB chose Ferrybridge C to trial the new 500 MW generating units, the first of this size to be installed anywhere in the world. It took many years to iron-out all the initial problems, however the 500 MW sets proved so successful that they became the industry standard, being installed in most power stations built by the CEGB over the following 10 years.

Each turbine line consisted of five cylinders – one high pressure (HP), one intermediate pressure (IP) and three low pressure (LP) stages per unit. The 500 MW Parsons generators were rated at 22,000 volts with a phase current of 15,437 amps. The generators were cooled using hydrogen.

The Primary Boiler Feed Pump (BFP) turbines were manufactured by Parsons, and the starting/standby BFPs were manufactured by G. & J. Weir.

Ferrybridge Generating Units

List of power generating units at Ferrybridge C Power Station:

Turbine Hall Pictures

Boiler Feed Pumps

Gas Turbines

In addition to the main generating units, Ferrybridge C Power Station was built with four gas turbines which had a combined capacity of 68 MW. The gas turbines could be used to start the main power plant in an emergency, such as loss of external power supplies caused by a failure of the National Grid. They could also be used to provide additional capacity as required.

The gas turbine units were numbered C5 to C8, continuing the numbering from the C station’s main units. Gas turbine units 6 and 7 were retired in the late 1990s, reducing the capacity to 34 MW. At the heart of the gas turbines was one Rolls Royce Olympus jet engine per turbine.

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The boiler house at Ferrybridge C Power Station contained the steam generating boilers and pulverised fuel mills. The four boiler units were manufactured by Babcock and Wilcox, were the single furnace, front wall fired, natural circulation type. They had a minimum efficiency of 76%, rising to 90.76% at continuous maximum rating.

The pulverised fuel mills were also manufactured by Babcock and Wilcox. There were 32 PF mills, 8 per unit. The FD Fans and ID Fans were supplied by James Howden, and there were two of each per unit.

Boiler House Pictures

Coal Bunkers and Mill Pictures

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The control room at Ferrybridge C Power Station was a fine example of 60s command centres – spacious, bright and, at the time it was built, futuristic. Each unit had its own control station, each wrapping around one corner of the square layout. Engineering and controls for station facilities were placed in the centre.

The control room had been upgraded with CUTLASS in the 1980s. The panels had been reconfigured accordingly, but the layout of the control desks in the control room remained unchanged until closure.

Control Room Pictures

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The water treatment plant at Ferrybridge C Power Station was responsible for ensuring the quality and purity of two types of water – the circulating cooling water and the treated water for the steam.

The water used for cooling, known as circulating water was taken from the River Aire. Before being circulated, the water passed through the treatment plant where it was filtered to ensure no debris entered the system. Once cleaned, the water was circulated through the power station’s condensers, and then pumped to the cooling towers to be cooled down and reused.

The treated water used for the production of steam required much more processing. The water needed to have a very high purity level, with no traces of any kind of contamination. The water treatment plant was responsible for topping up the system with high-purity water.

CW Pump House Pictures

The CW Pump House was responsible for pumping the cooling water and circulating it around the power station – firstly to the condensers and then to the cooling towers.

Water Treatment Plant Pictures

Sluice Pumps and Fire Pumps

The fire-fighting pumps are driven by diesel engines, just like the engines found in trucks. They have their own supply of diesel in overhead tanks, ensuring they can run independently of other systems even in the absence of an external power supply.

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The admin facilities at Ferrybridge C were housed in a separate building, connected via a long corridor.  Along with offices, the admin block contained the medical facilities, bathhouse, canteen and laboratory.

The workshops were a single story building located between the turbine hall and admin.

Admin, Workshops and Bathhouse Pictures

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The coal store at Ferrybridge ‘C’ Power Station had a capacity of 1 million tons of coal, and received the majority of its coal from the nearby Kellingley Colliery.

Coal was supplied by a combination of rail transport with 1,000-ton merry-go-round trains at the rate of 17 a day supplying 4 million tons of coal per year, and coal transported by barges along the Aire & Calder canal, via Knottingley and then through Ferrybridge lock.

Barge transport ended in the late 1990s. Built by Rhymney Engineering, the new automatic unloading equipment for the trains used ultrasonic detection. This system could deal with up to 99 wagons in a train to control the door-opening gear, emptying 5 wagons at a time into the bunkers.

The  Ferrybridge Barge Tippler

A 2,000 MW station requires a lot of coal, which traditionally took a long time to unload. It was announced in October 1964 that at Ferrybridge a coal discharging installation was built to raise and tip 210 ton barges in nine minutes. Coal would be delivered in trains of three compartment boats, propelled by a powerful tug.

The barge tippler was a large unloading hoist which raised the boats 12m above water level, discharging the coal into an elevated receiving hopper which fed the conveyor system leading to the power station. By this means an unloading rate of 1,000 tons per hour was achieved.

The system was designed by Strachan and Henshaw Ltd., of Bristol. On arrival at Ferrybridge, the barge trains were led into a channel approaching the unloader. At this stage they were taken in by a marshalling system and the tug moved away downstream to collect awaiting empty trains. After being re-assembled into a train, empty boats were back to Kellingley Colliery.

The manufacturers claimed that this system of water-borne transportation and handling could make a considerable contribution to industrial efficiency. The use of a tippler enabled barge carriage to compete favourably with, and be independent of, all other forms of transport wherever there is reasonable water access from the supplier to the customer.

After much research had been undertaken into the Ferrybridge installation, the Railway Board attempted to make out a case for delivery of coal to the power station by rail. The CEGB was convinced of the striking superiority of the barge system, which was able to go ahead as planned.

Use of the barge tippler was discontinued in the late 1990s when a new rail delivery system was installed, and all deliveries were made by either rail or truck from then on.

Barge Tippler Pictures

Document 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.