Construction of the first power station at Tilbury commenced in 1951 and Tilbury ‘A’ Station opened in 1956.

The original power station was mothballed in 1981 and was mostly demolished in 1999 – for a while small building housing ancillary services and the control room remained, however all traces have now been demolished.

Tilbury ‘B’ Station was constructed from 1961 and opened in 1968. The station consisted of four GEC generating units with a total capacity of 1428 MW. Fuel was delivered via ship to a huge jetty in the Thames. Cooling water was also drawn from the Thames.

The station was originally fuelled by coal but was converted to burn biomass in 2011. Only a couple of years later the announcement was made that the station was to be closed, and the station generated its last electricity in 2013. RWE cited a lack of government subsidiaries as the reason for this closure.

Buildings and Plant Detail

Tilbury Image Gallery

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

2012 Fire

On the morning of 27 February 2012 a major fire broke out in the station’s fuel storage area. Between 4,000 – 6,000 tonnes of fuel was being stored in the area at the time. Essex County Fire and Rescue Service mobilised over 120 firefighters to the fire, along with 15 pumping appliances, crews used three aerial ladder platforms, one major rescue tender, three bulk foam tenders and a thermal-imaging camera in a helicopter to help tackle the fire.

The 4 turbine-generator sets at Tilbury B Power Station were manufactured by GEC Erith and entered service in 1968. Each turbine had a generating capacity of 357 MW, with a combined output of 1,428 MW.

The four units were numbered 7-10, continuing the numbering from the six units in the ‘A’ station.

Tilbury B Generating Units

List of power generating units at Tilbury B Power Station:

Turbine Pictures

Unit 7 – Partly Dismantled

Unit 7 had been decommissioned before conversion to Biomass, and long before the closure of the whole station. As a result, the unit had been stripped back allowing a look into the inner workings of the turbines.

Gas Turbines

In addition to the four steam turbines, Tilbury B incorporated four gas turbine generators. The gas turbines could supply additional capacity at peak times, or be used to power to the stations main units in the case of an emergency involving a part or complete outage of the National Grid.

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The control room at Tilbury Power Station remained largely original, with green panels throughout. The station was upgraded to use the APMS system for control in 2005, and as such a series of large rear projection screens had been installed in the control room. The panels had been retrofitted with controls to link into the computerised APMS system, but the original layout of the control desks remained in place. The panels for unit 6 were removed as part of the turbo-generator’s decommissioning.

Control Room Pictures

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Tilbury power station had four boilers to generate steam for the turbines. The boilers were initially coal fired, and as such a coal delivery system incorporating conveyors and bunkers was also included. The station’s mill prepared the fuel, delivering pulverised coal into the boilers.

Conversion to biomass

In May 2011, RWE began converting the B station to burn biomass only. They hoped for the conversion to allow 750 MW of electricity to be generated from burning wood pellets imported from a pelleting plant in Georgia, USA, and other sources from Europe by the winter of 2011. This conversion would make the station the biggest biomass generating site in the world.

In July 2013 RWE announced they were halting the conversion due to difficulty in converting and financing the plant. It was mothballed after failing to receive a government grant and has since been decommissioned.

Boiler House Pictures

Fuel Delivery Pictures

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Coal was delivered to Tilbury B Power Station via ships, and the station had a dedicated jetty to accommodate them. The jetty was designed to receive large capacity ‘Panamax’ vessels, capable to carrying up to 65,000 tonnes of coal.

Two continuous ship unloaders (CSU) manufactured by Noell Kone Cranes were installed on the jetty, commonly referred to as “the Kones”. Weighing 850 tonnes, each Kone was 36 metres tall, 46 metres long and 12 metres wide – unloading coal at a rate of up to 1,500 tonnes per hour, which was transported to the power station’s stickpile via a conveyor system. The conveyor had a variable speed drive capable of moving the belt at up to 2.5m per second, resulting in a maximum capacity of 3000 tonnes per hour of coal.

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