30 June 2011: DECC’s annual Digest of UK Energy Statistics (DUKES) has just been published providing a welcome summer reading challenge for all energy-geeks… DUKES is principally concerned with national level energy statistics, and hence does not provide regional breakdowns in most instances (those are usually set out in separate articles in DECC’s quarterly journal Energy Trends). However, there a few issues areas worth looking at. In the first instance, it’s useful to be aware of what power plants operate within London itself, which in total contribute only a small percentage of London’s total electricity demand. The following London schemes are listed in the ‘Power Stations in the UK’ table in Chapter 5 of DUKES, to which some additional information/links have been added to below:
- Barking Power – a gas fired Combined Cycle Gas Turbine (CCGT) of 1000 MW (megawatts) generation capacity, which first started operating in 1994
- Citigen (London) UK Ltd – based in Charterhouse Street in Smithfields and owned and operated by E.ON, this scheme is fuelled by gas and gas oil, and is rated 31 MW and first started operating in 1995. The unit operates in Combined Heat and Power (CHP) mode providing heating, and also cooling (via chilled water) distributed by a district energy network to a number of customers in the City area.
- Thames Valley Power – a joint venture between EDF Energy and ATCO Power, this Gas/Gas oil 15MW CHP has been operating since 1995 at Heathrow Airport.
- London Heat & Power Company – a 9MW gas CHP based at Imperial College which started operation in 2009.
- Barkantine Heat & Power Company – A 1MW gas fuelled CHP with district heating system based on the Barkantine Estate in Tower Hamlets
- Taylors Lane – Taylor’s Lane Open Cycle Gas Turbine (OCGT) station, situated in Willesden is operated by E.ON and has two gas turbine units fired on natural gas with a total capacity of 132MW and began generating in 1979.
- Enfield Power Station– E.ON owned and operated 400MW gas turbine scheme which began generating in 1999.
- SELCHP – South East London Combined Heat & Power Ltd (SELCHP) 32 MW waste fired operated by Veolia Environmental Services began generating in 1994 – but only in power-only mode. Heat offtake opportunities (so the plant can finally operate in true-CHP mode) are currently being explored with Southwark Council.