please empty your brain below
gridwatch.templar.co.uk gives you an update on where our power is being generated.

John | 10.04.24 - 8:20 a.m. | #

I remember driving to the Edmonton plant forty years ago with a car boot full of confidential papers from work to destroy. You could drive up a ramp and reverse into a space next to a council refuse lorry and dump your stuff unsupervised into the raging inferno below. Payment was calculated from the difference in weight in your vehicle on entry and exit. I thought at the time that if I had a corpse to dispose of this would have been a relatively risk-free solution. Unsurprisingly this facility was withdrawn shortly after.

Keith from N2 | 10.04.24 - 8:55 a.m. | #

When I visited SELCHP I was told that in spite of its acronym, they didn't export any heat.

mikeS | 10.04.24 - 9:02 a.m. | #

Before I retired I worked for E.ON/Uniper (they still pay my pension so I had better be careful what I say) and visited the Enfield Site.

I am sure there are plenty of people in the Home Counties whose blood pressure would rise if they realised the nominal two largest power producers in London were actually owned by the German State. I say nominal because both Enfield and Taylors Lane are peak production plants (i.e. when Strictly ends and everyone turns on their Kettles and flushes the toilet) where as the operation of other three do not lend themselves to quick start-up/shut down so are more likely to run as base load. In terms of total annual production it is possible Riverside actually tops the list.

The real money made with electricity in the capital is made with all those lovely pylons, being able to meet peak demand when the margin is highest without the the inconvenience of having all the generating infrastructure. What is euphemistically known as "Asset Light". In this case the EU actually is, in my opinion, to blame as they forced the splitting up of Generators,transmitters and sellers. So the system is now profit orientated for everyone in the system whereas it used to be consumer orientated to match demand at lowest cost along the whole chain. Some call it progress. I call it daft.

keith the Kraut | 10.04.24 - 9:02 a.m. | #

This is what I come here for: an enlightening read that generates more answers than questions, powerful prose - and thankfully still free of plugs.


Frank F | 10.04.24 - 9:46 a.m. | #

SELCHP started providing heat ca 10 years ago to estates around Southwark Park. There are currently plans to build a heat supply network for estates around Old Kent Road.

commonliner | 10.04.24 - 10:00 a.m. | #

With "Events/Banqueting/Weddings" on the Meridian Grand shed in the Edmonton photo, is there anywhere more unglamorous and unromantic for a wedding than "next to the sewage incinerator"?

Suffolker | Homepage | 10.04.24 - 10:32 a.m. | #

Fascinating article thanks, always interesting to read about these essential activities that take place in the less glamorous parts of London. The one in Neasden was a real surprise.

Mikey C | 10.04.24 - 10:35 a.m. | #

SELCHP provided heat from day one. It is just originally no-one was able to use it due to no infrastructure being available. So, technically, it was legitimately a CHP plant from the outset.

Pedantic of Purley | 10.04.24 - 11:18 a.m. | #

There is an energy centre under the park in front of Battersea Power Station generating electricity and heating for the whole development and I think parts of Nine Elms with the waste vapour released through two of the power station chimneys.

South London Dave | 10.04.24 - 12:56 p.m. | #

Curious why the 22MW Beddington incinerator doesn't make the government's list.

Chz | 10.04.24 - 1:01 p.m. | #

The Enfield Power Station replaced the old coal fired power station that was round the corner in Millmarsh Lane, the Warburton bakery is on the old site of Enfield Cables and Enfield Rolling Mills where I was an apprentice,the Greggs bakery is on the site of the car park.

mclm | 10.04.24 - 1:25 p.m. | #

Cory are currently building a second waste incinerator called Riverside 2, beside the one described in this blog.

They have also just submitted a planning application for a Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) facility behind these power plants, which will take 10% of the Crossness Nature Reserve.

Please support our proposal to
Save Crossness Nature Reserve.

SaveCrossness NatureReserve | Homepage | 10.04.24 - 1:50 p.m. | #

Interesting that the various CHP energy centres used for heat networks don't appear in the DUKES database - e.g. the Olympic Park Energy Centre is around 50 MW (a mix of gas and biomass) if I recall correctly.

James Scantlebury | 10.04.24 - 1:58 p.m. | #

"This list covers stations owned or operated by Major Power Producers; other power stations (including many renewable sites and auto-generators) are included in the summary table but not listed separately."

diamond geezer | Homepage | 10.04.24 - 2:08 p.m. | #

Back in the early 80s I appreciated the irony of a boiler house having to be built next to the recently-closed Battersea Power Station to replace the free supply of waste heat the Power Station used to provide for the good folk of Pimlico. That's the trouble with using waste heat for central heating - the houses last longer than the source of waste heat. (Same thing happened on the railways: early diesel locomotives had to be fitted with a boiler to generate steam to heat carriages designed to be heated by a steam locomotive's exhaust)

Timbo | 10.04.24 - 4:19 p.m. | #

Some time around 1950, shortly after the electricity industry was nationalised, my father was given the job of visiting all the many power stations in the London area as part of an investigation to assess the plant that the CEGB had inherited and identify practices that might be working in one plant that others could learn from (a similar idea to the "locomotive trials" on British Railways.

Within the London area alone the Britsh Electricity Authority (later renamed the CEGB) ran 26 generating stations, of which 16 were on the Thames, and all were coal-fired except the "B" station at Bankside, which was oil-fired. London Transport owned another three and British Railways owned two.

Timbo | 10.04.24 - 4:52 p.m. | #

From the Cities of Making website

"One of the largest industrial corridors in London, the Upper Leigh Valley spans the boroughs of Enfield, Haringey, Waltham Forest and Hackney".

Oh dear.

Mark | Homepage | 10.04.24 - 4:54 p.m. | #

Astounded there's one in Neasden! Will peer out of the train window more closely now!

Cornish Cockney | 10.04.24 - 6:45 p.m. | #

Aaaaaand ... thats me out of the DG blogosphere. Good luck to all and good bye.

Secant | 10.04.24 - 8:18 p.m. | #

'the chimney has all the charm of a vacuum cleaner nozzle.' This made me laugh out loud. Interesting read, thank you.

Jayne | 10.04.24 - 9:16 p.m. | #

Quite right Secant, today's post was immensely offensive...

Hang on no, its facts about power stations.
I'm not with you.

Ian | 10.04.24 - 10:29 p.m. | #

I wonder if they were allergic to the phrase "net zero" or something

James Scantlebury | 11.04.24 - 1:18 p.m. | #

A bit of history on Brimsdown Power Station that pre-dated the Enfield one - an aerial photo.

Mike | 12.04.24 - 7:39 a.m. | #











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