The Ironbridge Power Stations, sometimes referred to as the Buildwas Power Stations were a series of two power stations which have occupied a site on the banks of the River Severn at Buildwas in Shropshire, England.

The first power station, later to become known as Ironbridge ‘A’ officially opened on 13th October 1932. Extra boilers were commissioned and by 1939 the station had a capacity of 200MW. In 1980 100MW of capacity was taken offline, and the remainder in 1981 when the station was closed.

Construction of the Ironbridge ‘B’ station began in 1963 to meet the rising demand for electricity after World War II. The 1,000MW power station was built alongside the existing ‘A’ station and began generating electricity on 11th June 1969 after delays in construction owing to industrial action and implementation of improvements that had been pioneered during the construction of similar stations using the new 500 MW generating units.

Project architect Alan Clark worked closely with landscape architect Kenneth Booth, to ensure that the station merged as seamlessly as possible into its natural surroundings. When viewed from Ironbridge, the surroundings of the station are hidden by wooded hills. The cooling towers were constructed using concrete to which a red pigment had been added, to blend with the colour of the local soil. So impressive were the measures taken to ensure that the power station was an asset to the gorge and not an eyesore, that it was short listed for a Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors/The Times conservation award in 1973.

In 2012 Ironbridge underwent modification to allow both generating units to run on 100% biomass. This reduced the generating capacity from 500MW per unit to approximately 370MW per unit.

In February 2014 a serious fire damaged unit 1’s turbine and generator. It was later announced that the damage would not be repaired, reducing the plant’s generation capacity to just 370MW in total.

Ironbridge ‘B’ stopped generating electricity on 20 November 2015 when the power station was closed.

Buildings and Plant Detail

Ironbridge Power Station Image Gallery

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

Fires at Ironbridge

Two major incidents have occurred at Ironbridge involving fire. The first took place in 1998 and resulted in the entire turbine hall requiring reconstruction. The second incident in 2014 when unit 1 caught fire. The fire caused extensive damage to the turbine and generator set of unit 1, which was never returned to service.

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Site Plan

Ironbridge Power Station had two 500 MW turbo-generator sets manufactured by AEI. The turbine arrangement consisted of one high pressure (HP) turbine, one intermediate pressure (IP) turbine, followed by three low pressure (LP) turbines.

Ironbridge B Generating Units

List of power generating units at Ironbridge B Power Station:

Turbine Hall Pictures

Fires at Ironbridge

Two major incidents have occurred at Ironbridge B involving fire.

1998 Turbine Fire

The first incident took place on 10th October 1998 when one of the turbines caught fire, causing explosions within the turbine hall. The entire turbine hall required reconstruction.

2014 Turbine Fire

Unit One was retired following a major fire around 6am on 4th February 2014. The fire destroyed the alternator and caused extensive damage to the turbines, condensers and associated equipment. The decision was made against repairing the damage, and the unit was not returned to service.

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The boiler house at Ironbridge B is a mostly metal-clad structure, and much attention to detail during it’s design and construction had been paid. Various other cladding materials had been used for some surfaces creating bold cubic masses.

The boiler house contained two boilers manufactured by Forster Wheeler. Along with the boilers were the associated coal delivery systems and mills.

The mills had been converted to process biomass as part of the conversion in 2012, and an array of new equipment was fitted to replace the old coal mills.

Boiler House Pictures

Fuel Delivery and Mill Pictures

The mills had been fitted with new equipment to process biomass in 2012

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The control room at Ironbridge incorporated a fully computerised system – the Advanced Plant Management System (APMS). This consisted of three banks of large rear projection screens around two operator workstations and an engineering workstation.

APMS completely replaced the original control desks, which were arranged over a much larger space. The upgrade was completed in 1997. One of the original control panels remains in the open space which was freed up when the new control room was fitted.

Original Control Room Pictures

APMS Control Room Pictures (1997 onwards)

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The administration block at Ironbridge B is a free-standing building, separate to the main power station. The admin block continues the theme of concrete panelling used elsewhere around the site, albeit with extensive use of large floor to ceiling windows. Period fittings within the administration block included a board room, containing a mosaic that reference the industries of the Ironbridge Gorge, and a grand entrance hall with a metallic mural.

Admin Block Pictures

Mosaic

The conference room contained a mosaic which had been donated by a local school many years ago, depicting the history of industry in the area. The mosaic was returned to the school prior to demolition.

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The cooling towers at Ironbridge B were unique in that they were constructed using concrete that had a red pigment added to give the towers a pinky hue. A great deal of effort had been taken to ensure the power station would blend into the surrounding as much as possible, and as part of this effort the decision was made to colour the cooling towers to match the surrounding soil colour.

Cooling Tower Pictures

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