| Westwood Power Station | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Country | England |
| Location | Greater Manchester,North West England |
| Coordinates | 53°32′18″N2°37′40″W / 53.538197°N 2.627654°W /53.538197; -2.627654 |
| Status | Decommissioned and demolished |
| Construction began | 1948 |
| Commission date | 1950 |
| Decommission date | 1989 |
| Operators | British Electricity Authority (1948–1955) Central Electricity Authority (1955–1957) Central Electricity Generating Board (1958–1989) |
| Thermal power station | |
| Primary fuel | Coal |
| Turbine technology | Steam turbine |
| Chimneys | 2 |
| Cooling towers | 2 |
| Cooling source | River water |
| Power generation | |
| Units decommissioned | All |
grid referenceSD585048 | |
Westwood Power Station was acoal-fired power station situated adjacent to theLeeds and Liverpool Canal inInce-in-Makerfield inGreater Manchester,North West England.
The station was constructed in 1948–50 by the British Electricity Authority. It used two 314 feet (96 m) tallcooling towers to cool its water.
The boiler plant comprised fiveBabcock & Wilcox pulverised fuel fired boilers capable of delivering 1,425,000 lb/h (180.0 kg/s) of steam at 660psi (45.5bar) and 393 °C.[1]
Following the construction of the national grid in 1928-33 Westwood power station was connected to an electricity grid ring which included the power stations atSouthport,Lister Drive (Liverpool),Warrington andRibble (Preston); this was one of three electricity rings in the North West.[2]
The generating capacity of the station was 128 MW comprising four upratedBritish Thomson-Houston 32 MWturbo-alternators. The first generating set was commissioned in September 1951 followed by the other sets in December 1951, September 1952, and December 1953.[3]
Steam condensing and cooling was by two Mitchell reinforced concrete hyperbolic cooling towers, each tower had a capacity of 3 million gallons per hour (3.79 m3/s).
The generating capacity and output from Westwood power station is given in the following graph and table.[1][3][4][5]
Westwood power station electricity output, GWh
 | Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. Updates on reimplementing the Graph extension, which will be known as the Chart extension, can be found onPhabricator and onMediaWiki.org. |
| Year | 1954 | 1955 | 1956 | 1957 | 1958 | 1961 | 1962 | 1963 | 1972 | 1979 | 1982 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Installed capacity, MW | 112 | 112 | 112 | 112 | 112 | 128 | 128 | 128 | 128 | 128 | 128 |
| Electricity output, GWh | 58.08 | 631.32 | 605.82 | 457.36 | 544.62 | 543.495 | 583.181 | 609.853 | 217.35 | 280.33 | 185.97 |
In the year ending 31 March 1972 the station's load factor (the average load as a per cent of maximum output capacity) was 20.6 per cent.[1]
The station was demolished in 1989, the cooling towers were demolished on 15 January 1989.[6][7]
The former power station site has been developed intoWestwood business park with over 610,000 square feet (57,000 m2) of office space.[8] Another part of the site had been redeveloped into aGirobank office from the early 1990s until it was demolished in 2015 to make way for a 400,000 sqftNice-Pak wet-wipe factory.[9][10]
