Report - Uskmouth B Power Station, Wales - January/March 2015

[clebby]

Uskmouth B Power Station, Wales.

Visited on two occasions with Speedo, huey and my housemate Carlota.

Some history:
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Uskmouth B power station was built in 1959. It's 3 generating sets have a capacity of 363 MW, which is enough to power 360,000 homes, or the surrounding area of Newport. Initially operated by the Central Electricity Generating Boarf, the station's operations were handed over to National Power upon privatisation in 1990. The station was closed in 1995, but in 1998 it was purchased by AES, given a £120 million refurbishment to bring it up to date with legislative requirements, and reopned in 2001. However, only a year later the plant passed into receivership, but had a brief period of operating in the winter between 2003 and 2004. In June 2004 the station was put back into full operation, when it was bought by Welsh Power, who were then known as Carron Energy. Welsh Power sold it to SSE in 2009 for £27m.

In May 2014, SSE announced plans to close the station, citing the fact that it is the UK's oldest and least efficient coal-fired power station. It closed later in the year, although in December 2014 it was announced that a buyer had been found, leading to fresh hopes that staff could be rehired.​

I've not got much to add that hasn't already been said by others. To recap: old, big, dirty. I do, however, think that Speed and I may have shot ourselves in the foot by visiting this one first. Uskmouth is by far the most appealing of all of the recent power station closures, and so I think we may have started with the final act and there's a chance the newer stations won't live up to expectations... we'll have to wait and see.

I should also probably point out that it's not exactly disused either. On Google Maps it is tantalisingly labelled as 'permanently closed', but it's really not. By my second visit the coal bunkers were half full, the boilers were making unwholesome noises, and there was an overall feeling that we weren't alone. Naturally we totally ignored all of these warning signs and strutted around like we owned the place, and it wasn't until after about five minutes of pissing around in the turbine hall that huey went to open the door to the middle control room, did that 'hit the floor like a sack of shit' technique so favoured by explorers, and informed us that it was time to leave.

Turns out there were two engineers sat in the control room, blissfully unaware of the utter gangfuck that had just transpired outside. My friends, I'm afraid Uskmouth is back online. Not that that deterred WDW and Seffy from giving it a go later on that night...

Coal conveyance and delivery:

Pulverising fuel mill:

Boiler house:

Expecting the control rooms to be firmly locked as per fishbrain et al's visit, finding the doors ajar was a nice surprise.

Unusually, each generating set had its own control room - starting at No. 13 as B was an extension to the older (now demolished) A station.

But naturally the real paydirt is down in the turbine hall:

Unfortunately by this point in the evening I was tired, cold and I wanted a Burger King so the standard of my photos rapidly took a nosedive. And of course on the second visit, before I could get any acceptable pictures we had to make our exit post haste.

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[ACID- REFLUX]

Very nice done mate. Well shot, specially like pic No1

 

[Ojay]

Champion that

 

[wellingtonian]

Epic stuff fella.

 

[huey]

Nice stuff cleg, for someone who never takes a camera out with them you do take a nice pic! Was an awesome night,thank you mate.

 

[slayaaaa]

Nice one! Love that!

 

[Punk]

Love it Cheers for sharing

 

[WhoDaresWins]

Top report.

 

[GAJ]

Nicely done, looks a good one this place

 

[clebby]

Cheers gang

 

[raisinwing]

Lovely stuff!

 

[PopPunkJamie]

Shit son you weren't kidding, that is top draw

 

[m9]

nice phots! Great to see more getting involved in uk power. Just please, no one get caught.. yeah?

 

[Boba Low]

Properly enjoyed this thread, great report, this one was always going to be stunning. I'll scan the CEGB booklet for it asap and put it up somewhere. Gutting that I haven't got round to going back after our couple of attempts last year but I still reckon its days at least as a coal generating station are numbered. It started generating in 1963, it's not that big compared to a 2000mw monster like Didcot A, incidentally the building of which began in 1964, just a year later, and today it is the least efficient coal burning station which contributes to the grid (if it is at all).

 

[merryprankster]

Very coool!! Top report dude