Eggborough Power Station – Turbines

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Eggborough Turbine Hall

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.

The turbine hall of Eggborough Power Station
The turbine hall of Eggborough Power Station

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:

Unit Name Capacity Date
Commissioned
Date
Decommissioned
Turbine/Generator
Manufacturer
Boiler
Manufacturer
Notes
Unit 1 490 MW 1967 16 March 2018 AEI Foster Wheeler
Unit 2 480 MW 1968 16 March 2018 AEI Foster Wheeler
Unit 3 495 MW 1970 21 March 2018 AEI Foster Wheeler Retrofitted with Flue-gas Desulphurisation for LCPD compliance
Unit 4 495 MW 1970 23 March 2018 AEI Foster Wheeler Retrofitted with Flue-gas Desulphurisation for LCPD compliance

Turbine Hall Pictures

Turbine hall, 1970, with No. 1 generator in the foreground.
Turbine hall, 1970, with No. 1 generator in the foreground.

Boiler Feed Pumps and Condenser Pictures

Gas Turbines

The gas turbines, pictured in 1970
The gas turbines, pictured in 1970

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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