Methil power station

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Methil Power Station is a small coal-fired power station in the town of Methil, Fife, Scotland, where the River Leven meets the Firth of Forth.

This station is now closed and awaits demoliton as part of a regeneration of this dilapidated and depressing area.

The power station consisted of 2 x 30 MW generation units for a peak rating of 57 MWe and was commissioned in 1965 for the then South of Scotland Electricity Board (SSEB). Built on the site of a golf course it was constructed to utilise low-grade coal-slurry supplied from the washeries of the nearby Fife coalfield by means of merry-go-round trains. As the Scottish coalfields were exhausted or abandoned in the mid-1980s, waste accumulated in coal bings was utilised as a fuel. In common with all other power stations in Scotland it lacks cooling towers; instead using sea water as coolant.

This station was built as a sister to Barony power station on the West Coast of Scotland, in Ayrshire. Methil and Barony helped to clear much of the coal bings around Scotland by burning the coal waste. However, as the bings latterly disappeared, operations ceased due to lack of coal-slurry fuel and uneconomical operation of such small facilities. Although the design of Methil was based on that of Barony, it incorporated many improvements.

In the late 1990s it was used to test 'clean coal' technology using one modified 30 MW boiler.