Fawley Power Station
Fawley Power Station was an oil-fired power station located on the western side of Southampton Water, between the villages of Fawley and Calshot in Hampshire, England. Its chimney is a prominent landmark, but it is not, as is sometimes claimed, the highest point in Hampshire.
Overview
The station, which in its final years was owned and operated by Npower, was oil-fired, powered by heavy fuel oil. A pipeline connected the station to the nearby Fawley oil refinery. Because oil is more expensive than other fuels such as coal and natural gas, Fawley did not operate continuously, but came on line at times of high demand.It was also connected to the National Grid with circuits going to Nursling and a tunnel under Southampton Water to Chilling then to Lovedean with a local substation at Botley Wood.
A dock was included in the construction, to allow for the delivery of oil by sea; however, after one ship delivery this facility remained disused.
History
Fawley was built by Mitchell Construction Architect Colin Morse RIBA for the CEGB between 1965 and 1969. It was commissioned in 1971 as a 2,000-megawatt power station, with four 500 MW generating units, each consisting of a boiler supplying steam to a turbine that powers an associated generator. The boilers were capable of delivering 1788.0 kg/s of steam at 158.6 bar and 538°C. The cooling pumps were Britain's largest with a flow of 210,000 GPM. One was driven by an experimental super-conducting electric motor.The operating data for the main plant is shown in the table:
| Year | Net capability, MW | Electricity supplied, GWh | Load as percent of capability, % | Thermal efficiency, % |
| 1972 | 2,000 | 7,059.640 | 48.5 | 34.38 |
| 1979 | 1,932 | 10,047.995 | 59.4 | 35.53 |
| 1981 | 1,932 | 5,271.594 | 31.1 | 34.24 |
| 1982 | 1,932 | 4,723.965 | 27.9 | 36.87 |
| 1984 | 1,932 | 2,007.425 | 11.8 | 34.27 |
| 1985 | 1,932 | 12,980.721 | 76.7 | 37.87 |
| 1986 | 1,932 | 2,110.406 | 12.5 | 35.18 |
| 1987 | 1,932 | 4,234.020 | 25.0 | 36.223 |
The electricity output, in GWh, is shown graphically:
Two units were mothballed in 1995, leaving the station with a capacity of only 1,000 MW.
On 18 September 2012, RWE npower announced they would be shutting down Fawley power station by the end of March 2013, due to the EU Large Combustion Plant Directive. The power station was duly shut on 31 March 2013. The decommissioning and demolition of the plant is expected to take several years, and the future of the site remains undecided.
Proposed Fawley B station
CEGB plans for a coal-fired Fawley B station were not pursued following privatisation of the industry in the late 1980s.Impact on wildlife
When the plant was operating the screens on the plants cooling water lines were found to kill as many as 50,000 fish a week. By the 80s intermittent plant operation meant that the annual kill total was around 200,000. While this may have resulted in reduced numbers of some species such as bass others like sand smelt seemed unaffected.Media
The unique round structure housing the control room for the station was used to represent the "World Control Center" building depicted in the 1975 movie Rollerball.Some scenes for the 2015 movie ' were filmed on location at Fawley power station.
The second series of British medical comedy Green Wing featured a scene that was shot in the control room.
In the Red Dwarf the episode "Give and Take" had a scene that was filmed inside the control room.
The 2017 Channel 4 programme Spies filmed at the station and inside the control room.
The final episode Harvest of series 4 of Endeavour used the power station and control room.
The exterior of the power station was used as a filming location for the Star Wars film '.
The location was used as the extraction point for the 2018 series of Celebrity Hunted. The successful fugitives escaped by speedboat, exiting into Southampton Water.