The Croydon power stations refers to a pair of demolished coal-fired power stations and to a gas-fired power station in the Purley Way area of Croydon, London.
The coal-fired stations operated from 1896 until 1984, and the gas-fired station opened in 2005. Croydon B power station's chimneys have been retained as a local landmark.
Although outside the borough, Beddington Energy Recycling Facility has been included for completeness. Croydon has a long history with the Beddington Sewage Farm, and is a member of the South London Waste Partnership.
History
Croydon A
The first power station built on the site, which would later become known as Croydon A power station, was opened in 1896. The station was designed by Sir Alexander Kennedy and built near Croydon Gas Works by the Croydon Corporation. Three 120kW alternating current (AC) generators were installed by British Thomson Houston. Rotating at 360 rpm the 20 pole alternators generated an alternating current at the American standard of 60Hz. A condition of the contract was that British Thomson Houston would initially run the power station, whose resident engineer was Mr. A L C Fell. His chief assistant Charles Merz took over a year later and who in 1925/6 was consulted for Britain’s National Grid as a pioneer of transmission systems. The corporation took over the operation in 1898 and appointed Mr T H Minshall as their chief engineer.
The electricity was distributed at 2,000v to 5 substations, which dropped the voltage down to 200v. Initially the electricity supplied a small compulsory area of about , composed mainly of shops and businesses. Street lighting was also provided by 50 arc lights fed directly from the generating station after rectification to direct current (DC). The standards (lamp-posts) for the arc lights were cast and installed by the local Waddon firm Wenham and Waters Ltd, who also won the contract to light Croydon’s Municipal Building (Town Hall), which opened the same year.
By 1901 the generated power had increased to over 1.8MW, now distributed via 26 substations to supply an area of about to its nearly 800 customers. Separate generators provided an additional 600kW DC and the steam was recycled through 3 wooden cooling towers. To reduce transmission losses, electricity was transmitted at 5,000v to outlying districts and AC was used there for street lighting. The power station also provided electricity for the trams, the principal route running from Norbury to Purley.
The generating equipment at the station was replaced in 1924, when low pressure equipment of 21 megawatts (MW) and high pressure equipment of 29 MW was installed, giving the station a generating capacity of 50 MW. In 1927 Croydon Corporation adopted the standard supply of 230V AC and in 1928 placed a contract for two additional wooden cooling towers. The first hyperbolic concrete tower was built in 1930, followed by another in 1933 A 1947 aerial photograph shows the power station with seven wooden and three hyperbolic concrete cooling towers.
The site had expanded from its origins on the north side of Factory Lane () to the south side (), extending to Wandle Park in the south and the Croydon and Wimbledon railway, to the west that brought coal to the power station. This corresponded with the arrival of English Electric Type 3B locomotive No.692 (a steeplecab design built in 1925) which used an overhead wire electric system, for the shunting of coal. In 1959 this was supplemented with a backup steam locomotive from Littlebrook Power Station, built by W. G. Bagnall in 1946.
Following nationalisation in 1947 the power station was owned by the British Energy Authority, who subsequently opened a new power station (Croydon B) across the Purley Way ().
In 1970, Croydon A was rarely active and was one of the few power stations in the country to still have wooden cooling towers on site but 2 concrete towers were in use at time of closure. It operated until 1973. The two towers closest to the railway were demolished in 1974 by a controlled explosion, but the third tower had to be demolished by hand because it was considered too close to nearby houses.
The generating capacity, maximum load, and electricity generated and sold was as follows:
Technical Specification
In 1923 the AC plant comprised: 1 × 3,000 kW and 2 × 5,000 kW turbo-alternators. The DC supply was generated by 1 × 750 kW and 1 × 1,000 kW reciprocating engines and generators. The total installed generating capacity was 14,750 kW. The boiler plant produced a total of 101,000 lb/hr (12.73 kg/s) of steam. A range of currents and voltages was available: