Aberthaw Power Station

Aberthaw Power Station is a power station on the south-coast of Wales west of Cardiff near Barry in the Vale of Glamorgan. Although it shares its name with the village of Aberthaw it is actually located on the waterfront of nearby village of Gileston. Its capacity (May 2007) was 1455 MW.       Originally a golf course 100years before ^[1], it opened in February 1966 ^[2] and uses coal which is transported down from the Tower Colliery by railway up in the Welsh valleys. Aberthaw is one of three of NPower's coal fired power stations, but in response to the government's renewable energy obligation that came into effect in April 2002, the plant is currently firing a range of biomass materials to replace some of the coal burned.

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Future

Aberthaw was due for closure, but owner nPower agreed to install new technology to reduce sulphur dioxide emissions by 90% by 2008 ^[3]. Construction started on 21 June, 2006 with a tree-planting ceremony attended by The Welsh Minister for Enterprise, Innovation and Networks, Andrew Davies. The Flue Gas Desulphurisation (FGD) project is being carried out by a consortium of ALSTOM and AMEC, which will employ at peak 500 workers on site at the peak of construction. RWE npower made the decision to fit FGD technology in June 2005, to enable the station to operate under new European environmental regulations from 2008 ^[4].

It has also recently been proposed that the plant could be replaced by a power station using nuclear power ^[5].

See also

• APMS: Advanced Plant Management System

References