Four English Electric Twin Avon gas turbo-generator sets, each rated at17.5 megawatt (MW), were installed in a separate building to the south of the 275,000 volt substation. Each set was arranged to supply the electrical auxiliary load of one of the 500 MW steam turbine/boiler units at times of low grid frequency.

When conditions of falling frequency was detected by a low frequency relay, an automatic sequence would be initiated, which runs up the generators and matches speed and voltage of the corresponding 500 MW sat.

Gas Turbine Pictures

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The main control room at Fiddler’s Ferry Power Station was located in a building adjacent to the turbine hall. All aspects of plant control were undertaken from here, including start up, running and shut down of all four units.

Control Room Pictures

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The boiler house at Fiddler’s Ferry Power Station contained the steam generating boilers and pulverised fuel mills. The four reheat boiler units were manufactured by International Combustion, were single divided furnace water tube boilers. The boilers had an evaporation capacity of 435 kg/s at 162 bar. The superheated steam temperature was 569°C.

When the station was on full load each boiler would burn 200 tons of coal per hour, giving a total for the whole station of 19,200 tons per day. The walls of the furnace were composed of 2.5 inch bore steel tubes filled with water which was turned into steam by the heat from the furnace.

The coal passed through pulverising mills where it was ground to a fine powder before being blown into the furnaces by a heated air stream. The pulverised fuel mills and coal feeders were also manufactured by International Combustion. There were 24 PF mills, 6 per unit. The FD Fans and ID Fans were supplied by Davidson, and there were 8 of each (2 per boiler).

Boiler House Pictures

Pulverised Fuel Mill and Coal Delivery Pictures

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Each turbo-generator set comprised a single-shaft five-cylinder impulse reaction turbine with a single reheat stage on the intermediate pressure cylinder. The three low pressure cylinders exhaust steam to the condensers. The generators were rated at 588MVA. The stator windings were water cooled whilst the rotor windings were cooled by hydrogen gas circulated by a blower on the generator shaft.

Fiddler’s Ferry Generating Units

List of power generating units at Fiddler’s Ferry Power Station:

Turbine Hall Pictures

Boiler Feed Pump Pictures

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Fiddler’s Ferry power station was a coal-fired power station located on the River Mersey at Warrington in Cheshire. Construction began in 1964 by the Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB). In a bid to combine efforts at the design and construction stages the boiler and turbo-generator plant were replicated from West Burton power station located in Nottinghamshire.

Upon privatisation of the UK’s energy industry in 1990 operation and ownership of the power station was transferred to Powergen. In 1999 Fiddler’s Ferry, along with Ferrybridge power station in North Yorkshire, were sold to Edison Mission Energy. They were both subsequently sold to AEP Energy Services in 2001 and again to SSE in 2004 for £136million.

The four 500 MW single shaft turbo-generator units manufactured by English Electric are arranged lengthwise along the turbine hall and provided electricity for around two million people

One of the 500 MW units was retired in March 2019. In June 2019, SSE confirmed that Fiddler’s Ferry would cease generation on 31 March 2020. The plant was desynchronized from the National Grid, ending nearly 50 years of electricity generation. Demolition of the station began in 2020 and was forecast to take up to seven years.

Buildings and Plant Detail

Fiddler’s Ferry Image Gallery

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

Documents and Schematics

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.

The 345 acre coal storage yard at Eggborough power station had a capacity of 1.75 million tons of coal, which is equivalent to 15 weeks supply. Fuel was originally drawn from the Yorkshire coalfields and consisted of small coals unsuitable for domestic use. The coal was delivered by rail, with a complete loop from the mainline enabling the coal trains to discharge while in motion, commonly know as a merry-go-round system. Each train carried about 1,000 tons of coal and could be unloaded and returned to the mainline in around 45 minutes.

A giant boom stacker was used to deliver coal to the stock yard at a rate of 3,000 tons per hour, and reclaimed using a bucket-wheel at 1,500 tons per hour. This was the first such system to be used in the UK.

Coal Handling Pictures

Documents and Schematics

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The workshops at Eggborough Power Station were well equipped with various machines for metalworking. The workshop were located in a single story building connected to the main building, directly behind the admin block.

Workshop Pictures

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The spacious and airy central control room at Eggborough contained the control desks for all four units, plus engineering and station services. Each unit had its own control station, wrapping around the corners of the square layout. Engineering and controls for station facilities were placed in the centre.

Between 1996-2000 the control desks at Eggborough were upgraded to incorporate Advanced Plant Management System (APMS) soft desks into the existing Cutlass interfaces. The system enabled the station to move from base load to multishifting in a fast and economical manner. A further upgrade completed in 2011 transferred the controls for the mills, draught and coal delivery to APACS soft desks.

Control Room Pictures

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