Bankside Power Station is a decommissioned power station located on the south bank of the River Thames, in the Bankside area of the Borough of Southwark, London. It generated electricity from 1891 to 1981. It was also used as a training base for electrical and mechanical student apprenticeships from all over the country. Since 2000 the building has housed the Tate Modern art museum and gallery.
Pioneer station
The pioneer Bankside power station was built at Meredith Wharf Bankside in 1891. It was owned and operated by the City of London Electric Lighting Company (CLELCo) and supplied electricity to the City and to part of north Southwark. The generating equipment was installed by the Brush Electrical Engineering Company and comprised two pairs of 25 kW Brush arc-lighters and two 100 kW single phase alternators generating at 2 kV and 100 Hz. This equipment first supplied direct current (DC) electricity to arc lamp street lights in Queen Victoria Street on 25 June 1891. Alternating current (AC) for domestic and commercial consumers was first supplied on 14 December 1891, this was a single-phase, 100 Hz, three-wire, 204/102 volt system. These were followed by plant consisting of a 2,500 kW Parsons turbine driving dynamos in tandem and three 2,500 kW Parsons turbo-alternators, the latter being used for supplying the lighting load of the more remote districts.
In 1901 the boiler house was doubled in width and contained 46 boilers. In the engine room there were ten British Thomson-Houston alternators directly coupled to three-crank Willans engines, eight Brush alternators with a capacity of 3,600 kW driven by two-cylinder compound Brush engines, and two Ferranti compound engines driving 1,500 kW alternators at 150 RPM, making an aggregate capacity of 10,500 kW.
The first 2,500 kW turbo-alternator was installed in December 1910 and a second in January 1911, others followed at nearly yearly intervals. In 1913 a further 2,500 kW Parsons turbo-generator of the same pattern as the previous ones also a set consisting of two 2,000 kW Westinghouse generators driven from a Parsons turbine through gearing. By 1920 there were seven turbo-alternators with an aggregate capacity of 19,500 kW. Until 1919 the system of generation was 2 kV, single-phase AC, and 450 V DC, this was changed that year to 11 kV, three-phase AC. The steam conditions were also increased from 150 psi to 250 psi with superheat to .
!Year
!Generating capacity (MW)
!Annual output (GWh)
!Connections (MW)
|-
|1910
|25
|25.2
|37.4
|-
|1915
|34.5
|29.5
|46.2
|-
|1923
|34.5
|49.2
|70.1
|-
|1928
|89
|79.5
|99.4
|-
|1934
|89
|114.1
|131.7
|-
|1945
|89
|103.0
|127.8
|}
In 1934 Bankside was connected to London ring of the National Grid and became a 'selected' station under the operational control of the Central Electricity Board.
At its peak in the 1930s the generating equipment comprised: one 5 MW, five 10 MW, two 15 MW Oerlikon and British Thomson-Houston turbo-alternators, and one Parsons 4 MW house service set (450-500 V), total capacity 89 MW. Some of the older plant was decommissioned. By 1952 the plant comprised one 5 MW and two 10 MW Oerlikon turbo-alternators, two 10 MW and two 15 MW B.T.H. turbo-alternators and one Parsons 4 MW set. These were fed by steam from 18 boilers; twelve Babcock & Wilcox Type C.T.M. each with a capacity of 50 klb/hr at 250 p.s.i. and 606 deg F and six Yarrow boilers of later date (65 and 75 klb/hr) with integral superheaters, Green’s horizontal “ Tri-tube ” economisers, and Yarrow tubular air heaters. The A station was closed down on 24th March to allow completion of Bankside B.
Complaints
There were numerous complaints against the power station throughout its operational life. In October 1901 the CLELCo paid the Corporation of Southwark £250 () in settlement of the costs of the corporation taking a smoke nuisance action against the company. In January 1903 the company was fined £20 () plus costs for "creating smoke". The CLELCo challenged some of these nuisance actions. In May 1910 an officer of the Public Control Department of the London County Council stated that he had observed black smoke issuing from the centre chimney and "in such volumes as to constitute a nuisance". This was contested by the company which said the information was inaccurate, since this was after sunset "any vapour or gas would assume a dark appearance […] and the absence of light would not ensure accuracy".
The London County Council undertook tests to measure the deposition of grit in the area during the summer of 1950. They estimated that up to 235 tons per square mile of grit was deposited in the area from Bankside ‘A’ power station during the month of September 1950.
Renewal and nationalisation
By the late 1930s Bankside was considered inefficient (in 1946 the thermal efficiency was 15.82%), old and polluting. Preliminary plans were drawn up by the CEB for a new power station, Bankside B, but World War II delayed any further redevelopment.
On 1 April 1948 the British electricity industry was nationalised, Bankside was vested in the British Electricity Authority and the electricity distribution system radiating from the power station was vested in the London Electricity Board. Bankside A was decommissioned in March 1959 and was demolished to allow the eastern end of Bankside B to be built. The new Bankside B power station was approved by the British Cabinet in April 1947. The oil consumption of the station at full load was 67 tons per hour.
Construction work was undertaken in two phases: 1947–1952 and 1958–1963.
|Manufacturer
|Foster Wheeler
|John Brown Land (Brown Riley)
|-
|Commissioned
|1952
|1963
|-
|Number
|Four
|One
|-
|Steam production (each)
|375,000 lb/hr
|860,000 lb/hr
|-
|Pressure
|950 psi
|1600 psi
|-
|Temperature
|925 °F
|1005 °F
|-
|Reheat
|None
|377 psi & 1005 °F
|}
Condenser cooling water was taken from the River Thames at 10 million gallons per hour (1.07 million m<sup>3/</sup>day). The temperature rise of the cooling water across the condensers was 15 °F (8.5 °C).
Flue-gas washing
Bankside B had a flue-gas washing plant to mitigate air pollution at its central London location. Only two British power stations had previously been fitted with such equipment: Battersea power station and Fulham power station. This process produced a characteristic white plume from the chimney. The plant was effective at removing sulphur compounds from the flue-gases (over its operational life it achieved an overall average sulphur removal efficiency of 97.2%). Contaminated water from the flue-gas washing plant was treated in tanks through which air was bubbled; this oxidised the sulphite to sulphate, the water was diluted with water from the condensers before being returned to the river.
District heating
In 1971 the London Electricity Board gained legal powers to develop a district heating scheme at Bankside. The scheme was abandoned following the fuel crisis of 1973–1974.
Generating capacity and output
The total output of Bankside B for selected years over its operational life was as follows.
{| class="wikitable"
|+Bankside B generating capacity and output
!Year
!Generating capacity (MW)
!Annual output (GWh)
|-
|1953/4
|120
|118.9
|-
|1958/9
|120
|657.7
|-
|1962/3
|180
|623.5
|-
|1963/4
|300
|536.0
|-
|1964/5
|300
|917.9
|-
|1965/6
|300
|778.2
|-
|1966/7
|300
|930.5
|-
|1967/8
|300
|937.2
|-
|1968/9
|300
|1,060.7
|-
|1969/70
|300
|1,099.8
|-
|1970/1
|300
|1,301.2
|-
|1971/2
|300
|912.6
|-
|1972/3
|300
|982.1
|-
|1973/4
|300
|662.6
|-
|1974/5
|300
|770.4
|-
|1975/6
|300
|320.7
|-
|1976/7
|240
|466.7
|-
|1977/8
|240
|314.2
|-
|1978/9
|120
|109.4
|-
|1979/80
|100
|9.6
|-
|1980/1
|100
|4.8
|}
On 8 October 1970 the station produced 6,004,364 kWh in a 24-hour period.
Rising oil prices from 1973 made the station uneconomic compared to coal-fired power stations, resulting in it being used less often – principally during the winter and at peak times. One of the 60 MW units was decommissioned in 1976 and the two other 60 MW units in 1978. The 120 MW unit was derated to 100 MW. Bankside B was closed on 31 October 1981. There were also campaigns for the building to be saved. The group Save Britain's Heritage visited Bankside in May 1980 and produced a report on possible uses. Applications to list the building in 1987 and 1992 were refused. The government wished to sell the site and listing would have constrained how developers could intervene in the fabric of the building. Bankside was given a 'Certificate of immunity from listing' on 3 February 1993.
At the privatisation of the British electricity industry in 1990 the power station was transferred to Nuclear Electric. The company prepared the building for sale by removing asbestos and the redundant machinery at a cost of £2.5 million. An application was made to demolish the west wall of the building to enable this to be done, but contractors were able to remove the plant through a hole in the west wall. The BBC television programme One Foot in the Past focused on the impending threat to the building; the reporter, Gavin Stamp, made an impassioned plea for the building to be saved.
In April 1994 the Tate Gallery announced that Bankside would be the home for the new Tate Modern. The £134 million conversion started in June 1995 with the removal of the remaining redundant plant. The conversion work was carried out by Carillion and completed in January 2000. Some of the internal structure remains, including the turbine hall. An electrical substation, taking up the southern part of the building, remained on-site and was owned by the French power company EDF Energy. In 2006, EDF announced that they would be releasing half this holding to the museum. The oil tanks were redeveloped into a performance art space opened in July 2012. A tower extension to the museum over the tanks was opened on 17 June 2016.
Film and television
Several episodes of British television, particularly science fiction series that have required industrial backdrops, such as Red Dwarf, were filmed at the station. The building featured in Danny Cannon's film Judge Dredd. It served as the Tower of London in Richard Loncraine's 1995 film version of Richard III. In its modern incarnation as the Tate Modern, the building's exterior is featured at the beginning of the first episode of Ashes to Ashes. It also appeared in Children of Men by Alfonso Cuarón. In 2018, Tate Modern was featured prominently in the Tom Cruise blockbuster, Mission: Impossible – Fallout.
See also
- Battersea Power Station
- City of London Electric Lighting Company
- Energy use and conservation in the United Kingdom
- Energy policy of the United Kingdom
References
External links
- Photos of the interior of Bankside Power Station 1991
- Article: Electrifying the City: Power and Profit at the City of London Electric Lighting Company Limited
- Article: The battle for Bankside: electricity, politics and the plans for post-war London