Cottam power station is a decommissioned coal-fired power station. The site extends over of mainly arable land and is situated at the eastern edge of Nottinghamshire on the west bank of the River Trent at Cottam near Retford. The larger coal-fired station, was decommissioned by EDF Energy in 2019 in line with the UK's goal to meet its zero-coal power generation by 2025. The smaller in-use station is Cottam Development Centre, a combined cycle gas turbine plant commissioned in 1999, with a generating capacity of 440 MW. This plant is owned by Uniper.
The site is one of a number of power stations located along the Trent valley. The West Burton power stations are downstream and Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station is upstream. The decommissioned High Marnham Power Station was upstream. Under the Central Electricity Generating Board in 1981/82 Cottam power station was awarded the Christopher Hinton trophy in recognition of good housekeeping the award was presented by junior Energy Minister David Mellor. After electricity privatisation in 1990, ownership moved to Powergen. In October 2000, the plant was sold to London Energy, who are part of EDF Energy, for £398 million.
In January 2019, EDF Energy announced that the coal station was due to cease generation in September 2019 after more than 50 years of operation. The station closed as planned on 30 September 2019. Demolition of Cottam Power Station began in 2021, with Brown and Mason carrying out the works.
Construction
Work was begun in April 1964 on the site of Mickleholme Farm by the Central Electricity Generating Board Midlands Project Group from Bournville. Mickleholme Farm laid between the precipitators and the cooling towers. The modernist architects for the buildings on site were the Nottingham practice of Yorke Rosenberg Mardall. Extensive use was made of 'Cottam Amber' coloured cladding around the boiler and turbine house, 'emphasising its functional grandeur at the heart of the complex'. The English architectural critic Reyner Banham dubbed the office block as 'over-wrought and made gratuitously rhetorical'.
The main contractor for the construction of the 2,000 MW power station was Balfour Beatty. The coal plant was supplied by the New Conveyor Company of Smethwick. John Thompson boilers supply steam to English Electric 500 MW steam turbines. The maximum continuous rating of each boiler is 2,400 lb/sq.in and 568 °C at the superheater. The power station opened in 1968 when owned by the Central Electricity Generating Board.
The ground level before construction varied between 3.35m and 5.18m (11 and 17 ft) ordnance datum (O.D.) In order to provide adequate protection against flooding, the area in which the main building is constructed was raised to 7.92m (26 ft) ordnance datum by filling from borrow pits on site, but the coal store and cooling tower area remain at the original level of 4.87m (16 ft) ordnance datum. The nature of the sub-soil was investigated by trial bores and found to be good load bearing marl at depths between 4.26m and 12.19m (14 and 40 ft) below the existing ground level and overlain by sand and gravel strata on top of which lay clay or silt and top soil.
The main building is 209.39m (687 ft) long by 124.35m (408 ft) wide and houses four 500 MW boiler-turbine units. The height of the boiler house is 65.22m (214 ft) and turbine house 34.44m (113 ft). The building is of steel construction with blockwork up to 10.66m (35 ft), above which there is a light-weight corrugated sheet cladding and windows.
An interesting feature of the construction of this building was the way in which the civil and steel erection work was phased. By completing the pile caps on units 1 and 2, the steel erection work was able to progress, while pile caps and flooring were completed on units 3 and 4. This enabled the steel work to be erected on units 3 and 4 from finished floor level while the flooring was being completed on units 1 and 2. This reduced the time taken to construct the main building.
Within the boiler house and between boilers 2 and 3, an escalator was erected which in several stages extended to the boiler drum level to assist with the movement of men and materials.
To the north of the main building is the precipitator bay and chimney. The four flues from the boiler are contained within a single chimney which stands 190.5m (625 ft) above ground level. In order to improve plume dispersal, the outer chimney casing is terminated 7.62m (25 ft) short of the four flues which stand at a height of 198.12m (650 ft)