Immingham Power Station
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Immingham Power Station is a 734MWe gas-fired CHP power station on Rosper Road near Immingham in North Lincolnshire. It is Europe's largest CHP plant.
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[edit] History
Plans for the power station began in 1998, when ways to provide power for both refineries were investigated. Due to the low price of electricity when the designs for the station began in 2004, the plant would have not been economically viable unless tax-incentives were given by the UK government. These were in the form of exemption from the Climate Change Levy and greater offsets against tax for the plant's depreciation. It opened on November 1 2004 by Margaret Beckett, and is owned by ConocoPhillips. The £350m plant is sited on the Humber Refinery. It is a CHP plant, providing electricity and heat for the refinery's processes. Excess steam goes to the neighbouring Lindsey Oil Refinery and excess electricity goes to the National Grid. It was designed by Foster Wheeler Energy and built by Kier.
[edit] Specification
It is a CCGT type power station using natural gas. Two 260MW General Electric Frame 9 (9001FA) gas turbines generate electricity with the exhaust gas from each heating a Nooter Eriksen heat recovery steam generator. Nooter is based in Cardano al Campo in the Italian Varese province. The steam from each these HRSGs transfers to a steam turbine. The two 115MWe steam turbines are built by Franco Tosi Meccanica based in Legnano in the Italian province of Milan. There are also two auxiliary boilers. Each boiler can provide 50% of the steam needs for each refinery. It normally exports around a minimum of 150MW to the National Grid, but this can be increased depending on the needs of the Grid and the two refineries. The plant is about 70% thermally efficient.
[edit] Future of the plant
In October 2006, ConocoPhillips approved a £210m extension of the plant to produce 1,180MW. The new plant is expected to be opened in the summer of 2009.
