In message ,
hammy1967 writes
they also used to use rolls royce oylmpus gas turbines as fitted to concorde
they used to use four of these at fawley power station , southampton for
peak demand sadly they have all be canabalised now for spares
All (well most of) the UK coal and oil power stations built in the late
1960's and early '70's were fitted with black start gas turbines and as
far as I can recall were either exclusively RR Avon or RR Olympus. It
takes between 20 and 25 MW just to start a coal unit (big fan motors and
electric pumps) before any power comes out so generally the Olympus
engines went on the bigger sets like at Drax (660 MW against 500 MW at
say Didcot or Rugeley). Our plant at Rugeley has four Avons plus we
have some Olympus engines in South Australia to do a similar duty or
peak lopping or black start. There were also a few stand alone gas
turbine stations built by the CEGB, some like Lister Drive in Liverpool
and Ocker Hill in the Midlands have been closed and demolished but I
think there are still some about (Cowes on the Isle of Wight is the only
souce of electricity on the island should the cable to the mainland go
down).

Stations contract with National Grid to provide ancillary services like
black start, if grid won't contract then there is no economic sense in
keeping the facility.
--
Andrew Sinclair http://www.smellycat.org