Aberthaw power stations
Aberthaw Power Station refers to two decommissioned coal-fired and co-fired biomass power stations on the coast of South Wales, near Barry in the Vale of Glamorgan. They were located at Limpert Bay, near the villages of Gileston and West Aberthaw. The most recent power station on the site, Aberthaw B Power Station, co-fired biomass and as of 2008 had a generating capacity of 1,560 megawatts . The power station closed on 31 March 2020.
The station was the location of a carbon capture trial system to determine whether the technology could be scaled up from lab conditions. The system consumed 1 MW.
History
The site of the stations was a golf course before the construction of the first station. Aberthaw was constructed by the CEGB under the chairmanship of Christopher Hinton. It is known as one the original 'Hinton Heavies', a suite of new 500 MW units procured at the time. Aberthaw "A" Power Station although recorded as first generating power on 7 February 1960, officially opened on 29 October 1963, and at the time it was the most advanced in the world. Aberthaw "B" station opened in 1971. Aberthaw "A" operated until 1995. It was subsequently demolished. Its two chimneys were the last section to be demolished, and this was done on Saturday, 25 July 1998.The site now has three generating units, each driven by its own Foster-Wheeler boiler. From 20062007 new steam turbines were fitted, allowing each unit to generate an extra 28-30 MW of power. Each unit rated at 520 MW.
Operations
Aberthaw burned approximately 5,0006,000 tonnes of fuel a day. The site usually burned two-thirds Welsh coal with the remainder being either foreign low-sulphur coal or biomass.The station took its entire coal feed stock in by rail from the Vale of Glamorgan Line, under contract to DBS. Rail facilities included east- and west-facing connections to the main line, three reception sidings, No. 8 and No. 9 merry-go-round loop lines, two gross-weight and tare-weight weighbridges, two hopper wagon discharge hoppers, a former fly ash siding, an oil discharge siding, two sidings adjacent to the former A station, and two exchange sidings.
Aberthaw A
The A station had six 100 MW turbo-alternators giving a gross output of 600 MW. The boilers operated on pulverised coal and delivered 570 kg/s of steam at 103.4 bar and 524°C. Station cooling was by sea water. In 1980/1 the station sent out 1,718.786 GWh, the thermal efficiency was 30.23 per cent. Aberthaw A was one of the CEGB’s twenty steam power stations with the highest thermal efficiency; in 1963–4 the thermal efficiency was 34.08 per cent, 34.67 per cent in 1964–5, and 34.27 per cent in 1965–6.The output from the A station was as follows:
| Year | 1960–1 | 1961–2 | 1962–3 | 1963–4 | 1964–5 | 1965–6 | 1971–2 | 1978–9 | 1980–1 | 1981–2 |
| Electricity supplied, GWh | 575.1 | 1848.1 | 2828.3 | 4,117 | 4,221 | 4,153 | 2,229 | 1,618 | 1,719 | 1,580 |
Aberthaw B
The B station had 2 × 462 MW and 1 × 475 MW turbo-alternators giving a gross output of 1,399 MW. The boilers operated on pulverised coal and delivered 1,170 kg/s of steam at 158.6 bar and 566°C. Station cooling was by sea water. In 1978/9 the station sent out 4,083.124 GWh and in 1980/1 sent out 5,620.143 GWh.There was a gas-turbine generating facility at Aberthaw, this was commissioned in February 1967. There were three 17.5 MW gas turbines with a total rating of 52.5 MW, they delivered 0.392 GWh in the year 1980/1.
Until its closure, the Tower Colliery in Hirwaun supplied much of the coal for Aberthaw. Until 2017 coal came from the Ffos-y-fran Land Reclamation Scheme in Merthyr Tydfil. Other sources included: the Aberpergwm drift and opencast mines in the Neath Valley; and the Cwmgwrach Colliery via the Onllwyn Washery and the Tower Opencast mine based at the site of the original Tower Colliery. Further stocks were sourced from abroad, primarily Russia, and shipped in via the ports of Portbury, Avonmouth and Newport Docks.
In response to the UK government's renewable energy obligation that came into effect in April 2002, the station began firing a range of biomass materials to replace some of the coal burned. This is due to Welsh coal being less volatile than other coal and as such producing more sulphur dioxide and carbon monoxide.