History,
Construction of the Ironbridge ‘B’ station began in 1963 to meet the rising demand for electricity after World War II. The 1,000MW power station was built alongside the existing ‘A’ station and began generating electricity on 11th June 1969 after delays in construction owing to industrial action and implementation of improvements that had been pioneered during the construction of similar stations using the new 500 MW generating units
Project architect Alan Clark worked closely with landscape architect Kenneth Booth, to ensure that the station merged as seamlessly as possible into its natural surroundings. When viewed from Ironbridge, the surroundings of the station are hidden by wooded hills. The cooling towers were constructed using concrete to which a red pigment had been added, to blend with the colour of the local soil. So impressive were the measures taken to ensure that the power station was an asset to the gorge and not an eyesore, that it was short listed for a Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors/The Times conservation award in 1973.
In 2012 Ironbridge underwent modification to allow both generating units to run on 100% biomass. This reduced the generating capacity from 500MW per unit to approximately 370MW per unit.
In February 2014 a serious fire damaged unit 1’s turbine and generator. It was later announced that the damage would not be repaired, reducing the plant’s generation capacity to just 370MW in total.
Ironbridge ‘B’ stopped generating electricity on 20 November 2015 when the power station was closed.
Explore,
This was a great little well big gem whilst i was up birmingham ways to visit, the explore was an early one around 5am and was coming up light pretty fast, i knew the decommissioning was underway and workers where due shortly so with that we got in and around as fast as possible to try and see as much as possible in that short period off time, i feel we did okish in the time frame but defo missed so much as these places are so extensive, never made the control room which was a pain but never mind.
Construction of the Ironbridge ‘B’ station began in 1963 to meet the rising demand for electricity after World War II. The 1,000MW power station was built alongside the existing ‘A’ station and began generating electricity on 11th June 1969 after delays in construction owing to industrial action and implementation of improvements that had been pioneered during the construction of similar stations using the new 500 MW generating units
Project architect Alan Clark worked closely with landscape architect Kenneth Booth, to ensure that the station merged as seamlessly as possible into its natural surroundings. When viewed from Ironbridge, the surroundings of the station are hidden by wooded hills. The cooling towers were constructed using concrete to which a red pigment had been added, to blend with the colour of the local soil. So impressive were the measures taken to ensure that the power station was an asset to the gorge and not an eyesore, that it was short listed for a Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors/The Times conservation award in 1973.
In 2012 Ironbridge underwent modification to allow both generating units to run on 100% biomass. This reduced the generating capacity from 500MW per unit to approximately 370MW per unit.
In February 2014 a serious fire damaged unit 1’s turbine and generator. It was later announced that the damage would not be repaired, reducing the plant’s generation capacity to just 370MW in total.
Ironbridge ‘B’ stopped generating electricity on 20 November 2015 when the power station was closed.
Explore,
This was a great little well big gem whilst i was up birmingham ways to visit, the explore was an early one around 5am and was coming up light pretty fast, i knew the decommissioning was underway and workers where due shortly so with that we got in and around as fast as possible to try and see as much as possible in that short period off time, i feel we did okish in the time frame but defo missed so much as these places are so extensive, never made the control room which was a pain but never mind.
