Readers letters
I am amazed to read that it is proposed to dismantle Calshot Power Station. The facilities have been successfully mothballed.
It was built in 1969, and the boilers were installed by Thompsons, who built, the virtually identical boilers at Fawley Refinery, at the same time. I supervised their installation, and then their operation, for 30 years. Fawley has the front half of a 120 MW turbine, operating at 98% efficiency supply the steam required for process operation.
At Fawley we burnt on the boilers everything from reside, to gas & LPG, this as a liquid, The boilers now forty years old are still running on gas successfully.
The Calshot boilers are capable of being converted to gas or LPG at minimum cost. It is also possible to use the stand by gas turbine generators, to provide combustion air to the boilers to create a combined cycle operation.
At a time when there is need to have available gas fired power stations of 600MW capacity, to shut down coal fired units, this is a viable project. At a location in the South, to support the Grid system where needed. There should be no problem to supplying any fuel required from Fawley Refinery, replacing the resid fuel previously supplied. This would also improve the use of the Refinery Facilities.
When it was decided to install additional generating capacity. It was decided to install a 60mw gas turbine co gen unit.
We consulted with CEGB and found they had a dedicated and frustrated gas turbine team. They were not allowed to install gas turbines to protect the coal industry (?). They provided support and gave us with a copy of a Winston Churchill Scholarship Paper, published by one of their staff, identifying all the options co gen options. This included conversion of existing coal fired power stations to Co Gen. We selected the option of using a conventional radiant boiler for the installation - there should be a copy of the paper in the Library of the Institute which may be worth publishing.
A successful conversion at Calshot could identify other coal burning stations capable of similar conversion.
Thompsons, asked me to confirm that identical boilers in Hong Kong, could also be converted to LPG fuel. As far as I know this was achieved in a successful manner.
Ray Lodge
P.S. It took the motor industry 60 years, to learn to burn petrol as a liquid, The same applies to LPG.
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