Stella Power Station
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Stella Power Station | |
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Stella Power Station shown within Tyne and Wear |
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OS grid reference | |
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Operator: | Central Electricity Generating Board |
Fuel: | Coal-fired 524MW (North & South Total) |
Commissioned: | 1954 |
Decommissioned: | 1989 |
The Stella Power Station was a coal-firing power station situated on the River Tyne near Stella, Gateshead and Lemington, Newcastle upon Tyne. The site comprised of two stations, Stella North and Stella South. Stella North had a capacity of 224MW and Stella South a capacity of 300MW, making a combined generating capacity of 524 megawatts (MW).
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[edit] History
The stations were designed by L J Couves & Partners and constructed between 1951 and 1954. They were opened on the 20 December 1954 to provide industrial and domestic power to much of Tyneside.
Stella South Power Station was partly constructed on the site of the track where the Blaydon Races were held. It was also on the site of Blaydon Rugby Club's ground, who the electricity board paid £1000 for their land. Newcastle University Boat Club had a boat house on the south station's site too, until the British Electrical Authority requisitioned it, forcing them to move to a new boat house upstream at Newburn.
[edit] Operations
The stations were of the "brick-cathedral" type with four 73 metre high free-standing cooling towers abutting the riverside.[1] The stations were designed to burn 2000 tons of coal a day. The coal was delivered to the stations by train and 22 railway sidings were constructed to handle the amount of coal delivered. Stella North's cooling system consisted of four 60-WMPs cooling tower units, whereas Stella South had a syphon system using five 300 MWPs units instead of cooling towers. This system entailed five seven feet in diameter pipes with values and screens. The stations were served by a number of flat iron barges: 'Bobbie Shaftoe', 'Bessie Surtees' and 'Hexamshire Lass'. They took fly ash from the stations down the River Tyne to dump in the North Sea.
[edit] Closure, Demolition and Present
After being in use for 35 years, the two stations were both decommissioned in 1989 because they had became outdated. After their closure, the stations were demolished in stages throughout the 1990's. The cooling towers were demolished on the 29th March 1992. The chimneys and buildings of Stella South followed in late 1996 before Stella North was finally demolished too in May 1997.
The 35 acre site of the south station is currently under redevelopment, with Barratt and Persimmon building 522 new residential units on it. The name of the new development is Riverside Crecent.[2] The site of the north station has been reclaimed, along with the site of the neighbouring Anglo Great Lakes Graphite Plant, making way for the new, growing business park, Newburn Riverside. The business park has a 4km cycle route and nature trail around it's edge, taking people along the side of the river and past where the cooling towers once stood.
Because of the amount of land reclamation on the sites, there is very little evidence left that the power stations were ever there, other than stray bricks and steel rods. A more abundant sign that the power station was once there are it's 3 large substations near by, which still import a large amount of electricity into the region from Scotland.[3]
[edit] Image Gallery
Stella Power Station viewed from Dunston. Dunston B power station and Dunston Staithes can be seen to the left of the image. |
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Stella Power Station viewed from the Lemington Gut. Lemington Power Station and Lemington Glass Works can be seen to the right of the image. |
Stella South Power Station viewed from the grounds of Stella park. |
Stella Power Station viewed from Newburn. In the foreground you can see the now dismantled Scotswood-Newburn-Wylam rail line that was used to serve Stella North Power Station. |
[edit] References
- ^ Structure details. SINE Project (Structural Images of the North East). Newcastle University. Retrieved on 2008-06-09.
- ^ "500 new riverside homes on the site of old power station". The Journal. Retrieved on 2008-06-09.
- ^ Grid Capacity Study. PB Power. Retrieved on 2008-06-09.