Uskmouth B Power Station.
@Ann Decay @SpiderMonkey @The Amateur Wanderer
Built in 1959 and initially operated by the CEGB, Uskmouth B is the UK's oldest remaining coal-fired power station
Brick built, with a single elegant concrete stack, the power station originally had three English Electric generating sets, producing a total of 363 MW of electricity which is enough to power 360,000 homes/the surrounding area of Newport
The station's operations were handed over to National Power during privatisation in the 1990's having changed hands numerous times since
The plant was opted into the Limited Life Derogation option under the Industrial Emissions Directive, limiting it to 17,500 hours of generation between now and 2023 which ever came first
Now owned by a man called Gupta under the guise of Atlantis Resources, we'll have to see how his renewable energy venture takes shape
Anyway.. It'd been almost 12 months since our hesitant visit here as we'd heard it had been put back into action again; running on Biomass
Turns out they'd only been chucking Coal at it, except nobody believed us until the control room logs we stumbled upon!
Something happened
and on April 3rd 2017 an explosion occurred ejecting a good chunk of the switch gear out through the wall of the 'Switch Room'
Funnily enough the logs appear to be missing from the day of the explosion and the day before, somehow managing to brush the coal dust under the carpet with that one..
There’s no smoke without fire!
The transformer blowing out the switch gear room appears worse than they made out, never seen anything like it!
The roof is collapsed and held up with scaffolding, a good chunk of the wall is missing and the cabinets have lifted a good 3ft from their bases and listing forward all bent out of shape
and that’s only half of the devastation which appears to have occurred when it was on load back in March/April
Getting onto the site wasn't too bad initially, we managed to avoid the drink and go for a more direct approach, although not the best of ideas
The security fella appeared out of nowhere and was staring intently at something, we couldn't move for what seemed like an age before he stood down and we scarpered behind a tipper truck and waited
With no further activity, we decided to crack on, a couple of cars did to and fro as we made our way past shared access for the site next door
First stop, the coal prep, where it's unloaded into bunkers that feed the pulverisers
We were careful not to hang/wander about too much here as it was covered with CCTV and we've all seen the live feeds from these sites
Pretty much all doors had fresh padlocks, luckily we eventually managed to find a way onwards
We found our way into a space within the adjoining boiler house and attempted to get out onto the gantry crane, but the only door we could open was at the other end of the where the bloody thing was parked up and no way out!
After some pissing about we did get a door open for a look across the turbine hall
It appeared we were alone, for now....
What a view it was, couldn't wait to get up close to that lot!
As shown earlier, the damage in 2017 to the switch gear/panels that control the outgoing transformers that supply electricity to the grid and also the incoming electricity when the station isn't on load were destroyed
During our visit here, you could see the station was powered temporary via a large & noisy truck mounted transformer, hence the lights, not sure what the state of play is here nowadays ?
The natural order with these places is usually play it safe in the boiler house, meander through to the turbine hall and nip into the control room if you're lucky
I wanted to skip to the main attraction, in case we were nabbed/evicted early doors
Not on your nelly was I just going home with a bunch of pipes and gantry's
So, on with the star attraction here, those 1950's English Electric turbo-generators ♥
Turbine Hall
Below which, can be found the Feed Pumps, Condensors, Coolant Systems & CW Pumps amongst other gubbins
Boiler House
Below the coal bunkers
You won't see pulverisers as old as this anymore ♥
A bunch of phone-tastics
Standby/Backup Diesel Alternators
Boiler Sampling Lab, well a sink anyway, can't find the other pics
Chemical Injection Plant
It's normally @AndyK that needs medical attention in these places
Control Rooms
That's right, rooms, the station as a separate control room for each of the 3 generating sets!
2 of them were in darkness although the switches and panels were lit up, pics weren't the best so we concentrated on the one that was
Some 1950's epic here, doesn't get much better
@The Amateur Wanderer ended up in a world of his own somewhere back in the Turbine Hall, so we left him to it..
Next up we decided to push our luck in the
Staff Area
One can't assume that just because these places aren't on load etc that they aren't used, we soon found out it was!
I initially went for a look in the Bath House as I'd lost Andy briefly and assumed he was in there anyway
Next door was a medical room, I nipped in for a quick pic
Conveniently it had a 'working toilet' and I was bursting for a Barry White, as I sat there I could hear someone whistling to themselves, Andy ? (later turned out it wasn't)
I heard some rustling in the canteen and found Andy had discovered a fresh box of Family Circle, that's right McVities finest biscuit selection right there
Well someone had to open them
The fridge was well stocked with GTFO
Just as I stuck the kettle on I noticed some paperwork next to the biscuits
"Was that you whistling earlier mate ?" No.. Turns out it wasn't Amateur Wanderer either
And there was that "Was that door open before" ? moment before we decided to give it legs
To Quote Andy
@Ann Decay @SpiderMonkey @The Amateur Wanderer
Built in 1959 and initially operated by the CEGB, Uskmouth B is the UK's oldest remaining coal-fired power station
Brick built, with a single elegant concrete stack, the power station originally had three English Electric generating sets, producing a total of 363 MW of electricity which is enough to power 360,000 homes/the surrounding area of Newport
The station's operations were handed over to National Power during privatisation in the 1990's having changed hands numerous times since
The plant was opted into the Limited Life Derogation option under the Industrial Emissions Directive, limiting it to 17,500 hours of generation between now and 2023 which ever came first
Now owned by a man called Gupta under the guise of Atlantis Resources, we'll have to see how his renewable energy venture takes shape
Anyway.. It'd been almost 12 months since our hesitant visit here as we'd heard it had been put back into action again; running on Biomass
Turns out they'd only been chucking Coal at it, except nobody believed us until the control room logs we stumbled upon!
Something happened
and on April 3rd 2017 an explosion occurred ejecting a good chunk of the switch gear out through the wall of the 'Switch Room'Funnily enough the logs appear to be missing from the day of the explosion and the day before, somehow managing to brush the coal dust under the carpet with that one..
There’s no smoke without fire!
The transformer blowing out the switch gear room appears worse than they made out, never seen anything like it!
The roof is collapsed and held up with scaffolding, a good chunk of the wall is missing and the cabinets have lifted a good 3ft from their bases and listing forward all bent out of shape
and that’s only half of the devastation which appears to have occurred when it was on load back in March/April
Getting onto the site wasn't too bad initially, we managed to avoid the drink and go for a more direct approach, although not the best of ideas
The security fella appeared out of nowhere and was staring intently at something, we couldn't move for what seemed like an age before he stood down and we scarpered behind a tipper truck and waited
With no further activity, we decided to crack on, a couple of cars did to and fro as we made our way past shared access for the site next door
First stop, the coal prep, where it's unloaded into bunkers that feed the pulverisers
We were careful not to hang/wander about too much here as it was covered with CCTV and we've all seen the live feeds from these sites
Pretty much all doors had fresh padlocks, luckily we eventually managed to find a way onwards
We found our way into a space within the adjoining boiler house and attempted to get out onto the gantry crane, but the only door we could open was at the other end of the where the bloody thing was parked up and no way out!
After some pissing about we did get a door open for a look across the turbine hall
It appeared we were alone, for now....
What a view it was, couldn't wait to get up close to that lot!
As shown earlier, the damage in 2017 to the switch gear/panels that control the outgoing transformers that supply electricity to the grid and also the incoming electricity when the station isn't on load were destroyed
During our visit here, you could see the station was powered temporary via a large & noisy truck mounted transformer, hence the lights, not sure what the state of play is here nowadays ?
The natural order with these places is usually play it safe in the boiler house, meander through to the turbine hall and nip into the control room if you're lucky
I wanted to skip to the main attraction, in case we were nabbed/evicted early doors
Not on your nelly was I just going home with a bunch of pipes and gantry's
So, on with the star attraction here, those 1950's English Electric turbo-generators ♥
Turbine Hall
Below which, can be found the Feed Pumps, Condensors, Coolant Systems & CW Pumps amongst other gubbins
Boiler House
Below the coal bunkers
You won't see pulverisers as old as this anymore ♥
A bunch of phone-tastics
Standby/Backup Diesel Alternators
Boiler Sampling Lab, well a sink anyway, can't find the other pics
Chemical Injection Plant
It's normally @AndyK that needs medical attention in these places
Control Rooms
That's right, rooms, the station as a separate control room for each of the 3 generating sets!
2 of them were in darkness although the switches and panels were lit up, pics weren't the best so we concentrated on the one that was
Some 1950's epic here, doesn't get much better
@The Amateur Wanderer ended up in a world of his own somewhere back in the Turbine Hall, so we left him to it..
Next up we decided to push our luck in the
Staff Area
One can't assume that just because these places aren't on load etc that they aren't used, we soon found out it was!
I initially went for a look in the Bath House as I'd lost Andy briefly and assumed he was in there anyway
Next door was a medical room, I nipped in for a quick pic
Conveniently it had a 'working toilet' and I was bursting for a Barry White, as I sat there I could hear someone whistling to themselves, Andy ? (later turned out it wasn't)
I heard some rustling in the canteen and found Andy had discovered a fresh box of Family Circle, that's right McVities finest biscuit selection right there
Well someone had to open them
The fridge was well stocked with GTFO
Just as I stuck the kettle on I noticed some paperwork next to the biscuits
"Was that you whistling earlier mate ?" No.. Turns out it wasn't Amateur Wanderer either
And there was that "Was that door open before" ? moment before we decided to give it legs
To Quote Andy
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