Methil Power Station was a small base load coal slurry-fired power station in the town of

Methil, Fife Methil ( Scottish Gaelic: Meadhchill) is an eastern coastal town in Scotland. It was first recorded as "Methkil" in 1207, and belonged to the Bishop of St Andrews. Two Bronze Age cemeteries have been discovered which date the settlement as ...

, Scotland. It was situated on the south side of the mouth of the River Leven, where the river enters the

Firth of Forth The Firth of Forth () is the estuary, or firth, of several Scottish rivers including the River Forth. It meets the North Sea with Fife on the north coast and Lothian on the south. Name ''Firth'' is a cognate of ''fjord'', a Norse word meanin ...

. It was a local landmark, with the chimney visible for some distance.

Design

The power station consisted of two 30-

megawatt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after Jame ...

(MW) generation units for a peak rating of 57 MWe. It was commissioned in 1965 for the then

South of Scotland Electricity Board The South of Scotland Electricity Board (SSEB) generated, transmitted and distributed electricity throughout the south of Scotland, including the former regions of Strathclyde, Lothian, Fife, Central, Borders and Dumfries and Galloway and a few t ...

. Built on the site of a

golf course A golf course is the grounds on which the sport of golf is played. It consists of a series of holes, each consisting of a tee box, a fairway, the rough and other hazards, and a green with a cylindrical hole in the ground, known as a "cup". The ...

, it was designed to utilise low-grade coal slurry supplied from the washeries of the nearby Fife coalfield. This coal was delivered by road and rail wagons shunted into and out of elevated sidings. Like almost all other coal-fired power stations in Scotland, Methil did not use cooling towers, instead using sea water as coolant. An exception was Methil's sister station of Barony, situated in central Ayrshire.

History

This station was built as a sister to Barony Power Station on the West Coast of Scotland, in

Ayrshire Ayrshire ( gd, Siorrachd Inbhir Àir, ) is a Counties of Scotland, historic county and registration county in south-west Scotland, located on the shores of the Firth of Clyde. Its principal towns include Ayr, Kilmarnock and Irvine, North Ayrshi ...

. Although the design of Methil was based on that of Barony, it incorporated many improvements. As the Scottish coalfields were exhausted or abandoned in the mid-1980s, waste accumulated in coal tips, and this waste was used as a fuel in the Methil and Barony power stations. However, as the tips were cleared, operations at the two stations ceased due to lack of coal-slurry fuel and the uneconomical operation of such small facilities. This station ceased generating in 2000 and was put into standby as a strategic reserve. The power station was finally demolished in 2011 as part of a regeneration of this area. The preferred redevelopment option for the site is for leisure and tourism. A retail park or shopping centre development is also being considered.

References

Bibliography

External links

YouTube – footage of demolitionYouTube – footage of demolitionYouTube – footage of chimney demolition
{{Scottish energy Buildings and structures in Fife Levenmouth Coal-fired power stations in Scotland Former power stations in Scotland 1965 establishments in Scotland 2000 disestablishments in Scotland Energy infrastructure completed in 1965 Buildings and structures demolished in 2011