Service Industry

Bucketwheel excavator working the coal heaps at Drax power station.

The Shannon hydro-electric scheme was constructed between 1925 and 1929 to harness the power of the river where it underwent a fall of nearly 35 metres in the final stages of its route to tidal waters at Limerick. The civil engineering works were undertaken by the German company Siemens-Schuckertwerke and on completion the power station at Ardnacrusha was the largest hydro-electric generating plant in the world. Initially there were three vertical shaft Francis turbine generators installed and in 1934 a single vertical shaft Kalan turbine generator was added, giving a total output of 85mw from an average head of 28.5 metres.

Rugeley power station in April 2016, just before closure. It was sleeping on this particular day.

Entrance to the Rugeley 'B' Power Station when it was still in full production.

At the end of one of the the turbine/generator rows at Drax power station. High Pressure Turbine on the right,the large silver pipes carry super heated steam, meet in the middle then pas over the turbine. On the left are the Steam Governor Valves ,which govern the amount of steam, and stop the Turbine from overspeeding. The Turbine will be turning at 3000RPM.

Coal transfer tower at Northern power station, Port Augusta South Australia.

Rugeley power station back in 2007 when the flue-gas desulphurisation plant was being built. Now the whole plant is due for demolition.

New use for old gasholder frames seen from the platform at St Pancras station in London. These have been moved from nearer to Kings Cross and are now being incorporated into a development of apartments.

I took this photo from Kerridge Hill near Macclesfield exactly seven years ago today. At that time the Fiddler's Ferry power station was still safe and secure whereas its life is now likely to be very short as coal generation is phased out.

The station gas meter at the Fakenham Gadsworks. This was manufactured in 1929 by the Gas Meter Co. of Wigan and was used to record the amount of gas produced compared with the amount of coal consumed by the retorts. After measurement the gas passed to the gasholder.

Sandfields Pumping Station, Lichfield, erected by the South Staffordshire Waterworks Company. The building contains the preserved 65 inch condensing beam engine built in 1873 by G & J Davies.

Gas bill for 1850-51 issued by the Macclesfield Gas Light Company. 5s 0d per 1,000 cubic feet used. I note that it was not paid until October 1851; would they would have been cut off these days for delaying payment for so long?

The Duisburg-Walsum power station was built in 1928 to use coal from the adjacent Walsum coal mine. It has subsequently been expanded and modernised with increasingly large generating plant. The latest is Block 10 on which construction started in 2006 with a view to commissioning in 2010. Unfortunately the use of a low-alloy steel, designed for higher pressures and temperatures, in the evaporator section of the boiler led to over 3,000 leaky welds and after rectification more leaks during the testing process in May 2011. The faulty section had to be replaced with tried and tested steel and it was not until April 2013 that the boiler was fired for the first time using oil. Sunsequently the boiler has been run on hard coal and after problems with the Hitachi generator were resolved the plant has been able to generate up to 800Mw and commercial operation began in December 2013. The late completion of the plant has led to a number of damages claims running to hundreds of millions of Euros.

This is the base of one of the two early gasholders at Carrickfergus gasworks. The brick lined tank only needs water around the sides of the metal holder and therefore some of the space inside is filled with a brick cone often referred to as a dumpling.

E.ON UK operate the 2034 MW power station at Ratcliffe-on-Soar.

On the right is the Playford B Power Station which was located at Port Paterson in the Australian state of South Australia about 5.5 kilometres (3.4 mi) south of the city centre of Port Augusta. It was coal powered with four 60 MW steam turbines that generate a total of 240 MW of electricity. Commissioned in 1963, it was co-located with the larger, newer Northern Power Station. Playford B was mothballed in 2012 and its permanent closure was announced by operator Alinta Energy in October 2015. Prior to being mothballed it primarily operated in the summer, when electricity demand peaks. Northern Power Station was located in the locality of Port Paterson in the Australian state of South Australia about 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) south of the city centre of Port Augusta. It was coal powered with two 260 MW steam turbines that generated a total of 520 MW of electricity. It was operated and maintained by Alinta Energy and was commissioned in 1985. The plant ceased electricity production in May 2016 and has subsequently been demolished. Both power stations received coal by rail from the Leigh Creek Coal Mine, 280 km to the north and drew cooling water from Spencer Gulf, returning it to the sea at an elevated temperature

Ratcliffe cooling towers from the top of the boiler building.

The view from the top of the boiler building at Ratcliffe on Soar power station. A four image stitch in Photoshop.