Shotton Power Station

Shotton Power Station
Country	Wales, United Kingdom
Location	Flintshire
Coordinates	53.23375°N 3.03265°W / 53.23375; -3.03265
Status	Operational
Commission date	2001
Decommission date	June 2012
Owner	GDF Suez
Thermal power station
Primary fuel	Natural gas
Power generation
Units operational	2 x 75 MW 1 x 60 MW
Make and model	General Electric
Nameplate capacity	210 MW

Shotton Combined Heat and Power Station is a 210 MWe gas-fired CHP power station in Flintshire, Wales.

It is located on Weighbridge Road in Deeside, near the A548 in Shotton, Flintshire.

History

The power station opened in 2001 as Shotton CHP Ltd, when owned by TXU Europe. The plant is near the site of UPM's Shotton paper mill. It is near steelworks owned by Corus Group. In December 2002, TXU had financial problems when the price of electricity plummeted. The plant went into administration. In January 2003, the administrators, Pricewaterhousecoopers, successfully restarted the power plant. It was the first time a power station had been commercially running whilst in receivership. In October 2003, the plant was bought by Gaz de France (GdF), being their only power station in the UK until the company bought the Teesside power station in February 2008. Late 2008 Gaz de France merged with Suez (a major global utility company) to form GDF Suez.

The site is next door to the Deeside Power Station, north of the River Dee. International Power decided to close the plant in June 2012, as the commissioning of a number of highly efficient gas-fired power stations in the UK, the relatively low efficiency of Shotton CHP and the worst position of gas in UK's merit order over the previous years made the plant uncompetitive.

Specification

It was a CCGT-type power station that runs on natural gas. The plant had two 75 MWe General Electric 6FA gas turbines from which the exhaust gas heats two heat recovery steam generators. The steam from these power one steam turbine.

External links

• Official Site
• Calling in receivers in December 2002