Fiddlers Ferry Power Station

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Fiddlers Ferry Power Station is the name of a 1989MW coal fired electricity generating power station located in Cuerdley, Widnes, England. The station is owned and operated by Scottish and Southern Energy plc.

It has eight cooling towers and takes its water requirements from the River Mersey alongside. Since the deep mines in the Lancashire coalfield closed, all its coal is either imported, or supplied from mines in Yorkshire. One of its cooling towers collapsed on Friday 13 January 1984, due to the freak high winds of that winter, but has since been rebuilt.

The station was buit by the CEGB but was transferred to Powergen PLC after privatisation. The station, along with Ferrybridge Power Station, a 1995MW coal-fired station in Yorkshire, was then sold to Edison Mission Energy in 1999, sold on to AEP Energy Services Ltd in 2001 and both were sold again in July 2004 to Scottish and Southern Energy for £136m.

By 2008, Fiddlers Ferry will be fitted with a FGD (Flue Gas Desulphurisation) plant, significantly reducing the emissions of sulphur oxides, one of the principal causes of acid rain. It also burns biofuels together with the coal. This work will commence 2006 and should be complete by 2007. Imported Coal is supplied largely by train from Liverpool docks.

It can be spotted from as far away as the Peak District.