The Rugeley power stations were a series of two coal-fired power stations located on the River Trent at Rugeley in Staffordshire. Construction of the first power station at the site, Rugeley ‘A’ station started in 1956 and station’s generating sets were commissioned between 1961 and 1962.

The ‘A’ station took coal directly from the neighbouring Lea Hall Colliery by conveyor belt. The colliery was put into production some 6 months before the first generating unit was commissioned in the power station. This was the first joint venture between the Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB) and the National Coal Board (NCB). The Lea Hall colliery was closed on 24 January 1991, meaning all coal burned in the stations needed to be delivered by rail.

Construction of Rugeley ‘B’ power station began in 1965, with completion of the station in 1972. It had an output of 1,000 megawatts (MW) and had a 400 kilovolt (kV) connection to the national grid. With both stations in operation, 850 people were employed at the stations in 1983.

The two stations were initially operated by the Central Electricity Generating Board, but following privatisation in 1990, were handed over to National Power. In July 1996 the Rugeley B power station was bought by Eastern Generation, itself acquired by TXU Europe. Rugeley B was subsequently sold to International Power plc in July 2001. It remains under the same ownership, though International Power later merged with GDF Suez in 2011.

Construction of a Flue Gas Desulfurization plant started in early 2007 and it was commissioned at the B station in 2009. This allowed the station to comply with environmental legislation in force at the time and continue generating electricity.

In February 2016 it was announced that the power station would close in the summer of 2016. An announcement by owners, Engie blamed a deterioration in market conditions which included a fall in market prices and increasing carbon costs. Rugeley Power Station ceased all operations on Wednesday 8 June 2016. Decommissioning began in June 2016. All buildings and structures on site have now been demolished.

Buildings and Plant Detail

Rugeley B Image Gallery

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

Documents and Schematics

The turbine hall at Rugeley contains two C. A. Parsons generating sets, each have a capacity of 500 MW. The two units were numbered 6 and 7, a continuation of the numbering from the ‘A’ station. Unit 6 was commissioned on 9th January 1970, and Unit 7 later that year on 15th October 1970.

The turbines are Parsons TC2F110 model, consisting of one High Pressure (HP), one Intermediate Pressure (IP) and three Low Pressure (LP) stages. Steam is reheated after the HP stage.

Rugeley B Generating Units

Turbine Statistics

Unit 6 was last run on 8th June 2016 and had run for a total of 285,595 hrs. It had a total of 2,764 starts (2313 hot and 451 cold) and generated a total of 125,776 GWh (average load 440 MW).

Unit 7 was last run on 15th October 2015 and had run for a total of 289,320 hrs. It had a total of 2,705 starts (2318 hot and 387 cold) and generated a total of 123,501 GWh (average load 427 MW).

Turbine Hall Pictures

Gas Turbines

In addition to the two steam turbine units, Rugeley also had two gas turbine generators. These were capable of starting the main generator sets without an electricity supply from the National Grid, and could also provide additional capacity as and when needed. The gas turbines were powered by Rolls Royce Avon 300 series engines, and each had a capacity of 25 MW.

Documents and Schematics

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The boiler house at Rugeley B contained two Foster Wheeler John Brown boilers, one per generating unit. They were coal-fired, radiant boilers with superheaters and economisers. Each unit had 7 pulverised fuel mills, fed from the 14 coal feeders situated above them.

Coal for the boilers was originally supplied via a conveyor directly from the neighbouring Lea Hall Colliery. The colliery closed in 1991, meaning from then on all coal needed to be delivered via rail. Rugeley had a rail-unloader, allowing hopper trains to empty their contents directly into the hoppers below. An extensive network of conveyors then transported the coal between the rail-unloader, coal store and the power station itself.

Mill and Boiler House Pictures

Coal Plant Images

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Originally fitted with traditional hard-desk control panels, the control room at Rugeley was modernised in 1998-9, replacing the original control panels with the Advanced Plant Management System (APMS) softdesk system. The system used Siemens APACS DCS system which replaced the legacy CUTLASS and other hardwired systems.

Each of the two units had its own control station, featuring 21″ displays, large projection screens and an engineering workstation. Common services were supervised from a central desk between the two units with its own displays and a large rear projection screen.

Control Room Pictures

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The admin and welfare facilities at Rugeley B Power were housed in a separate building, linked to the power station via an link-bridge to the control room block. Along with offices, the admin block contained the medical facilities, bathhouse and canteen.

The workshops were on a single story, located within the southern end of the main power station building.

Administration Pictures

Workshop Pictures

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