Ince Power Station refers to a series of two demolished power station

Power station

A power station is an industrial facility for the generation of electric energy....

s, which were located on a site near Ellesmere Port

Ellesmere Port

Ellesmere Port is a large industrial town and port in the unitary authority of Cheshire West and Chester and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. It is situated on the south border of the Wirral Peninsula on the banks of the Manchester Ship Canal, which in turn gives access to the River...

 in Cheshire

Cheshire

Cheshire is a ceremonial county in North West England. Cheshire's county town is the city of Chester, although its largest town is Warrington. Other major towns include Widnes, Congleton, Crewe, Ellesmere Port, Runcorn, Macclesfield, Winsford, Northwich, and Wilmslow...

, North West England

North West England

North West England, informally known as The North West, is one of the nine official regions of England.North West England had a 2006 estimated population of 6,853,201 the third most populated region after London and the South East...

.

Ince A Power Station

When the uranium enrichment plant at Capenhurst

Capenhurst

Capenhurst is a village and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire West and Chester and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England and located on the Wirral Peninsula to the south west of the town of Ellesmere Port...

 opened in 1949, it was realised that its power demand would require the construction of a new power station nearby. Rendel, Palmer & Tritton were appointed as the construction's civil engineering consultants, while the Central Electricity Authority

Central Electricity Authority (UK)

The Central Electricity Authority was a body that ran the electricity supply industry in England and Wales between 1954 and 1957. The CEA replaced the earlier British Electricity Authority as a result of the Electricity Reorganisation Act 1954, which moved responsibility for Scottish electricity...

 engineered the station's electrical and mechanical plant.

The station was built on an 83 acres (335,889.4 m²) plot of land acquired as a result of tidal borings. The main buildings were constructed where the load-bearing sandstone

Sandstone

Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains.Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any colour, but the most common colours are tan, brown, yellow,...

 was at its highest level. After the removal of 14 ft (4.3 m) of top soil it was possible to construct the buildings directly upon hard bearing sand, removing the necessity of piled foundations

Deep foundation

A deep foundation is a type of foundation distinguished from shallow foundations by the depth they are embedded into the ground. There are many reasons a geotechnical engineer would recommend a deep foundation over a shallow foundation, but some of the common reasons are very large design loads, a...

. However, the cooling tower

Cooling tower

Cooling towers are heat removal devices used to transfer process waste heat to the atmosphere. Cooling towers may either use the evaporation of water to remove process heat and cool the working fluid to near the wet-bulb air temperature or in the case of closed circuit dry cooling towers rely...

s and north chimney did require piled foundations as the sandstone foundation sloped away from the power station site.

The station's main buildings were of a steel frame

Steel frame

Steel frame usually refers to a building technique with a "skeleton frame" of vertical steel columns and horizontal -beams, constructed in a rectangular grid to support the floors, roof and walls of a building which are all attached to the frame...

d construction. The boiler house was clad using cellactite sheet cladding, and was of a semi-outdoor construction due to the speed of construction required. The turbine hall was a brick building with prefabricated stone used on window and door surrounds. The building's roof was made from asbestos

Asbestos

Asbestos is a set of six naturally occurring silicate minerals used commercially for their desirable physical properties. They all have in common their eponymous, asbestiform habit: long, thin fibrous crystals...

 cement. The floors in the station were made of quarry tile

Quarry tile

Quarry tile is a building construction material, usually 1/2 to 3/4 inches thick, made by the extrusion process from natural clay or shales. - Sizes and shapes :...

 and terrazzo

Terrazzo

Terrazzo is a composite material poured in place or precast, which is used for floor and wall treatments. It consists of marble, quartz, granite, glass or other suitable chips, sprinkled or unsprinkled, and poured with a binder that is cementitious, chemical or a combination of both...

. The station's coal bunkers were steel plate and girder constructions. The entire building measured 350 ft (106.7 m) long by 232 ft (70.7 m) wide, containing approximately 3,800 tonnes of steel. The station also had two 300 ft (91.4 m) tall chimneys

Flue gas stack

A flue-gas stack is a type of chimney, a vertical pipe, channel or similar structure through which combustion product gases called flue gases are exhausted to the outside air. Flue gases are produced when coal, oil, natural gas, wood or any other fuel is combusted in an industrial furnace, a power...

. They were made from brick and had internal diameters of 16 ft (4.9 m). They were supported upon 61 ft (18.6 m) tall concrete plinths. The administration and amenity block was built next to the station, and connected to the turbine hall by an overhead access bridge. The block contained the station's control room, along with laboratories, administration offices, a canteen, lockers and showers. It was heated by excess steam bled from the turbines.

Ince A Power Station was opened on 9 October 1957 by Lord Citrine, the chairman of the Central Electricity Authority. The station used four 60 megawatt (MW) turbo alternator

Alternator

An alternator is an electromechanical device that converts mechanical energy to electrical energy in the form of alternating current.Most alternators use a rotating magnetic field but linear alternators are occasionally used...

s, giving the station a total generation capacity of 240 MW. Each turbine was supplied with steam from a coal-fired boiler

Boiler

A boiler is a closed vessel in which water or other fluid is heated. The heated or vaporized fluid exits the boiler for use in various processes or heating applications.-Materials:...

 at a rate of 550000 lb (249,475.8 kg) per hour, and at a temperature of 480 °C. Each boiler and turbine set operated as an independent generating unit, with no interconnection of boilers. It was also realised mid-way through the station's construction, that the station should be capable of duel firing heavy fuel oil

Fuel oil

Fuel oil is a fraction obtained from petroleum distillation, either as a distillate or a residue. Broadly speaking, fuel oil is any liquid petroleum product that is burned in a furnace or boiler for the generation of heat or used in an engine for the generation of power, except oils having a flash...

. Electricity was generated at 12.8 kilovolts (kV). It was then passed through a transformer which increased the voltage to 132 kV, before passing into the national grid.

Coal was delivered to the station's coal storage area by rail

Rail transport

Rail transport is a means of conveyance of passengers and goods by way of wheeled vehicles running on rail tracks. In contrast to road transport, where vehicles merely run on a prepared surface, rail vehicles are also directionally guided by the tracks they run on...

 from the East Midlands coalfields.

Water for the station's systems was taken from the River Dee

River Dee, Wales

The River Dee is a long river in the United Kingdom. It travels through Wales and England and also forms part of the border between the two countries....

 at Chester

Chester

Chester is a city in Cheshire, England. Lying on the River Dee, close to the border with Wales, it is home to 77,040 inhabitants, and is the largest and most populous settlement of the wider unitary authority area of Cheshire West and Chester, which had a population of 328,100 according to the...

, and taken to the station by a pipeline

Pipeline transport

Pipeline transport is the transportation of goods through a pipe. Most commonly, liquids and gases are sent, but pneumatic tubes that transport solid capsules using compressed air are also used....

 built by the West Cheshire Water Board to serve the power station and the uranium enrichment plant. The water was cooled using four hyperboloid

Hyperboloid structure

Hyperboloid structures are architectural structures designed with hyperboloid geometry. Often these are tall structures such as towers where the hyperboloid geometry's structural strength is used to support an object high off the ground, but hyperboloid geometry is also often used for decorative...

 natural draft

Stack effect

Stack effect is the movement of air into and out of buildings, chimneys, flue gas stacks, or other containers, and is driven by buoyancy. Buoyancy occurs due to a difference in indoor-to-outdoor air density resulting from temperature and moisture differences. The result is either a positive or...

 cooling towers. Each tower was 250 ft (76.2 m) tall and had a 205 ft (62.5 m) base diameter, with a cooling capacity of 2.75 million gallons per hour.

Ince B Power Station

Ince B Power Station built as part of the Dash for Oil in the UK during the 1960s, schemed as being a base load operating power station. The choice of the Ince site for a large new oil-fired station was politically influenced as the government wanted a station in the North West of England, which led to a rumour that the power station was built with the only purpose of creating jobs.

The station's construction suffered lengthy delays. Its transmission system wasn't adequate to handle the large flow of electricity from the nuclear power stations to the north. There were also faults with the station's rotor

Rotor (electric)

The rotor is the non-stationary part of a rotary electric motor, electric generator or alternator, which rotates because the wires and magnetic field of the motor are arranged so that a torque is developed about the rotor's axis. In some designs, the rotor can act to serve as the motor's armature,...

s, which required them returning to the manufacturer's works. The station eventually used two national spares. Low construction staff productivity was also a problem, which almost led to the project being completely abandoned. The station had eventually began operating by March 1984, when it achieved the second highest thermal efficiency in the country for a plant of its size, after Pembroke Power Station

Pembroke Power Station

Pembroke B Power Station is a 2,000 MWe natural gas-fired power station currently under construction near Pembroke in Wales. The new power station is being built on the site of the former oil-fired power station which closed in 1997 and demolished in 2000....

 in Wales

Wales

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

.

The station occupied a 125 acre (0.5058575 km²) site. Its boiler house measured 102.5 m (336.3 ft) by 49.5 m (162.4 ft) and 61 m (200.1 ft) high. The turbine hall was 123 m (403.5 ft) by 60 m (196.9 ft) and 32 m (105 ft) high. It used two 500 MW Parsons

C. A. Parsons and Company

C. A. Parsons and Company was a British engineering firm which was once one of the largest employers on Tyneside.-History:The Company was founded by Charles Algernon Parsons in 1889 to produce turbo-generators, his own invention. At the beginning of the Twentieth Century, the company was producing...

 generators

Electrical generator

In electricity generation, an electric generator is a device that converts mechanical energy to electrical energy. A generator forces electric charge to flow through an external electrical circuit. It is analogous to a water pump, which causes water to flow...

, along with two 25 MW Avon

Rolls-Royce Avon

|-See also:-Bibliography:* Gunston, Bill. World Encyclopaedia of Aero Engines. Cambridge, England. Patrick Stephens Limited, 1989. ISBN 1-85260-163-9-External links:**** a 1955 Flight article on the development of the Avon...

 gas turbine

Gas turbine

A gas turbine, also called a combustion turbine, is a type of internal combustion engine. It has an upstream rotating compressor coupled to a downstream turbine, and a combustion chamber in-between....

s. However, in 1993, one of the station's two units, Unit 5, was converted to burn orimulsion

Orimulsion

Orimulsion is a registered trademark name for a bitumen-based fuel that was developed for industrial use by Intevep, the Research and Development Affiliate of Petroleos de Venezuela SA , following earlier collaboration on oil emulsions with British Petroleum.-Source of the bitumen:Like coal and...

. Its boilers were provided by Clarke Chapman Ltd

Clarke Chapman

Clarke Chapman is a British engineering firm based in Gateshead, which was formerly listed on the London Stock Exchange.-History:The company was founded in 1864 in Gateshead by William Clarke...

. The station B had a single 152.5 m (500.3 ft) chimney, with a diameter of 12.5 m (41 ft) which tapered to 7.6 m (24.9 ft). The station used a single hyperboloid

Hyperboloid structure

Hyperboloid structures are architectural structures designed with hyperboloid geometry. Often these are tall structures such as towers where the hyperboloid geometry's structural strength is used to support an object high off the ground, but hyperboloid geometry is also often used for decorative...

 induced draft cooling tower

Cooling tower

Cooling towers are heat removal devices used to transfer process waste heat to the atmosphere. Cooling towers may either use the evaporation of water to remove process heat and cool the working fluid to near the wet-bulb air temperature or in the case of closed circuit dry cooling towers rely...

, which stood at 116.7 m (382.9 ft) tall.

Fuel oil was supplied directly to the station by a pipeline, directly from Shell's

Royal Dutch Shell

Royal Dutch Shell plc , commonly known as Shell, is a global oil and gas company headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands and with its registered office in London, United Kingdom. It is the fifth-largest company in the world according to a composite measure by Forbes magazine and one of the six...

 Stanlow Oil Refinery. Oil was also brought to the station by ship, via a berth

Berth (moorings)

A berth is a location in a port or harbour used specifically for mooring vessels while not at sea.-Locations in a port:Berth is the term used in ports and harbors to define a specific location where a vessel may be berthed, usually for the purposes of loading and unloading.Most berths will be...

 on the Manchester Ship Canal

Manchester Ship Canal

The Manchester Ship Canal is a river navigation 36 miles long in the North West of England. Starting at the Mersey Estuary near Liverpool, it generally follows the original routes of the rivers Mersey and Irwell through the historic counties of Cheshire and Lancashire. Several sets of locks lift...

.

The station was controlled by two GEC 2050

GEC 2050

The GEC 2050 was an 8-bit minicomputer produced during the 1970s, initially by Marconi Elliott Computer Systems of the UK, before the company renamed itself GEC Computers Limited...

computers.

Closure and demolition

The A Station was closed and demolished in the mid-1980s, however its single remaining cooling tower was left standing until 1999. The B Station ceased generating electricity in March 1997 and demolition of the structures commenced a couple of years later. The station's chimney was demolished on 28 April 1999. The station's cooling tower was demolished on 5 December 1999 along with the A Station's remaining cooling tower.

External links

• An Unofficial Ince 'B' Power Station Web Site - Website with cross sectional diagrams and photos of Ince B Power Station