Westwood Power Station

Westwood Power Station was a coal-fired power station situated adjacent to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal in Ince-in-Makerfield in Greater Manchester, North West England.

Not to be confused with Ince Power Station.

Westwood Power Station
CountryEngland
LocationGreater Manchester, North West England
Coordinates53°32′18″N 2°37′40″W
StatusDecommissioned and demolished
Construction began1948
Commission date1950
Decommission date1980s
Operator(s)British Electricity Authority
(1948–1955)
Central Electricity Authority
(1955–1957)
Central Electricity Generating Board
(1958–1989)
Thermal power station
Primary fuelCoal
Turbine technologySteam turbine
Chimneys2
Cooling towers2
Cooling sourceRiver water
Power generation
Units decommissionedAll

grid reference SD585048

History

The station was constructed in 1948–50 by the British Electricity Authority. It used two 314 feet (96 m) tall cooling towers to cool its water.

The boiler plant comprised five Babcock & Wilcox pulverised fuel fired boilers capable of delivering 1,425,000 lb/h (180.0 kg/s) of steam at 660 psi (45.5 bar) and 393 °C.[1]

Following the construction of the national grid in 1928-33 Westwood power station was connected to an electricity grid ring which included the power stations at Southport, Lister Drive (Liverpool), Warrington and Ribble (Preston); this was one of three electricity rings in the North West.[2]

The generating capacity of the station was 128 MW comprising four uprated British Thomson-Houston 32 MW turbo-alternators. The first generating set was commissioned in September 1951 followed by the other sets in December 1951, September 1952, and December 1953.[3]

Steam condensing and cooling was by two Mitchell reinforced concrete hyperbolic cooling towers, each tower had a capacity of 3 million gallons per hour (3.79 m3/s).

The generating capacity and output from Westwood power station is given in the following graph and table.[1][3][4][5]

Westwood power station electricity output, GWh

Westwood electricity capacity and output
Year 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1961 1962 1963 1972 1979 1982
Installed capacity, MW 112 112 112 112 112 128 128 128 128 128 128
Electricity output, GWh 58.08 631.32 605.82 457.36 544.62 543.495 583.181 609.853 217.35 280.33 185.97

In the year ending 31 March 1972 the station's load factor (the average load as a per cent of maximum output capacity) was 20.6 per cent.[1]

The station was demolished in 1989, the cooling towers were demolished on 15 January 1989.[6][7]

Today

The former power station site has been developed into Westwood business park with over 610,000 square feet (57,000 m2) of office space.[8] Another part of the site had been redeveloped into a Girobank office from the early 1990s until it was demolished in 2015 to make way for a 400,000 sqft Nice-Pak wet-wipe factory.[9][10]

References
  1. CEGB (1972). CEGB Statistical Yearbook 1972. London: CEGB. p. 17.
  2. Hannah, Leslie (1979). Electricity before Nationalisation. London: Macmillan. p. 121. ISBN 0333220862.
  3. Garrett, Frederick C., ed. (1959). Garke's Manual of Electricity Supply vol. 56. London: Electrical Press. pp. A-107, A-138.
  4. CEGB (1979). CEGB Statistical Yearbook 1978-79. London: CEGB. p. 8. ISBN 0902543598.
  5. CEGB Annual report and Accounts, 1961, 1962 & 1963
  6. "Westwood Power Station" (PHP). www.wiganworld.co.uk/. Retrieved 8 March 2009.
  7. "Explosive end for 330 ft cooling towers". The Times. 16 January 1989.
  8. Green light for green business park Archived 24 March 2011 at the Wayback Machine
  9. "Nice-Pak, Westwood Park, Wigan" (PDF). www.greenremediation.co.uk.
  10. New premises Pak-ing a punch Wigan Today
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