Station plans to be leaner and greener

Feb 5 2008 by Karen McLauchlan, Evening Gazette

A PROPOSED £500m “green” upgrade to one of the world’s largest old generation combined heat and power plants has taken a step forward on Teesside.

Plans have been submitted to Redcar and Cleveland Council for a major overhaul of the Teesside Power Station at Wilton, which generates 3% of the electricity needs of England and Wales.

Owner Teesside Power confirmed last year that it was looking to upgrade or sell the site, which is 15 years old in April.

It now says it wants to take advantage of advances in technology which would make it more efficient and flexible to operate. While the project will not increase output from the plant, it will make it leaner and greener.

A planning decision is expected later this year, but, if given the go-ahead, work would not begin until 2010, due to the long waiting list for turbines.

Teesside Power chief executive David Lewis said: “If our proposals are approved there would be a number of benefits, including the ability to produce the same amount of power using less natural gas and water, with reduced carbon dioxide emissions per unit of energy generated.

“There would be no change to the 1875MW power export capacity from the power station and the upgraded plant would be contained within the existing site boundary.”

Teesside Power Station began operations on the western edge of the Wilton site in April 1993 as a joint venture between Enron, ICI and four of the regional electricity companies.

Now run by px, it is among the biggest combined-cycle gas turbine combined heat and power plants in the world.