Langage Power Station is a combined-cycle power plant near the city of Plymouth in

Devon Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devo ...

, England. Centrica, owners of the site, announced on 16 June 2006 that the

natural gas Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbo ...

fired

power station A power station, also referred to as a power plant and sometimes generating station or generating plant, is an industrial facility for the generation of electric power. Power stations are generally connected to an electrical grid. Many ...

was to be constructed on their behalf by Alstom. Section 36 consent was granted in 2000 and Reserved Matters were approved in 2005. The 885 MW plant was expected to cost £400 million and to start generating in early 2009, but problems with internal pipework pushed this back. The power station was completed and operations started in March 2010. Langage was set to be the first

fossil fuel power station A fossil fuel power station is a thermal power station which burns a fossil fuel, such as coal or natural gas, to produce electricity. Fossil fuel power stations have machinery to convert the heat energy of combustion into mechanical energy, wh ...

built in the UK since 2005, but due to delays it was preceded by

Marchwood Power Station Marchwood Power Station is an 898.1 MW gas-fired power station in Marchwood, near Southampton, England. It is situated beside estuary of the River Test where it meets Southampton Water, opposite the Port of Southampton. It is built on th ...

, which was commissioned in 2009. Multiple other CCGT stations were also commissioned around this time, including Pembroke Power Station and West Burton B. The station was commissioned against an expected '

energy gap In solid-state physics, an energy gap is an energy range in a solid where no electron states exist, i.e. an energy range where the density of states vanishes. Especially in condensed-matter physics, an energy gap is often known more abstractly as ...

' in UK generating capacity, caused by the expected closure of nuclear and older coal-fired stations. The power station had permission to build three gas-powered turbines when it bought the site in 2004, but due to land constraints they were only able to build two. The plant uses two Alstom GT26

gas turbine A gas turbine, also called a combustion turbine, is a type of continuous flow internal combustion engine. The main parts common to all gas turbine engines form the power-producing part (known as the gas generator or core) and are, in the directio ...

s, each driving an air-cooled

turbogenerator A turbo generator is an electric generator connected to the shaft of a steam turbine or gas turbine for the generation of electric power. Large steam-powered turbo generators provide the majority of the world's electricity and are also use ...

, with a

heat recovery steam generator A heat recovery steam generator (''HRSG'') is an energy recovery heat exchanger that recovers heat from a hot gas stream, such as a combustion turbine or other waste gas stream. It produces steam that can be used in a process (cogeneration) or us ...

powering a single STF30C steam turbine which also drives another air-cooled turbogenerator. Centrica put the plant up for sale in May 2014, stating an aim to invest in smaller, more flexible power stations. On 21 June 2017, Centrica agreed to sell the power station to EP UK Investments as part of a deal that also saw South Humber Bank CCGT power station change hands between the two companies. EP UK Investments is daughter company of EP Power Europe, which is 100% owned by

Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus' Places * Czech, ...

energy group EPH (owned by Daniel Křetínský). The UK high pressure national gas pipeline network (the

National Transmission System The United Kingdom's National Transmission System (NTS) is the network of gas pipelines that supply gas to about forty power stations and large industrial users from natural gas terminals situated on the coast, and to gas distribution companies th ...

) was extended to Plymouth in 1989 (Feeder No.20 terminates at an Above Ground Installation (AGI) south of Smithaleigh). Langage Power Station was built to exploit the availability of high pressure gas and the station now represents the southernmost gas-fired station on the network.

References

Natural gas-fired power stations in England Power stations in South West England Energetický a průmyslový holding {{UK-powerstation-stub

See also

References