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Cowes Power Station
Cowes power station
Country	England
Location	East Cowes, Isle of Wight
Coordinates	50°44′45″N 1°17′11″W / 50.7459°N 1.2864°W / 50.7459; -1.2864
Commission date	July 1982
Operator	RWE Generation UK
Employees	3
Thermal power station
Primary fuel	Light fuel oil
Turbine technology	Open cycle gas turbine
Chimneys	2 (80 m)
Combined cycle?	No
Cogeneration?	No
Power generation
Units operational	2 × 70 MW
Make and model	Rolls-Royce Olympus gas turbines; C.A. Parsons & Co generators
Nameplate capacity	140 MW
External links
Commons	Related media on Commons
[edit on Wikidata]

Cowes power station (or Kingston power station) is a 140MW Open Cycle Gas Turbine station powered by two 70MW units. The station is the Isle of Wight's only conventional power generation source other than power from the mainland. The station was built in 1982 at a cost of £30 million. The station is owned and operated by RWE Generation UK.

Both units run on light fuel oil and operate at either peak time or when the grid requires frequency response. The station is either run locally or by remote from the Hythe Dispatch Desk, located at Hythe Power Station. The gas turbine engines have a total output of 200,000 horsepower and use 762 litres (201 US gal) of fuel oil per minute when running at maximum output.

There was a 24 MW coal-fired power station at Cowes that was decommissioned on 15 March 1976.

In addition to electricity generated on the Isle of Wight, power is transmitted from the mainland through subsea cables. The first connection was in 1947 by a 33 kV cable from Nursling near Southampton to Cowes. A second cable was installed in 1964, this was the first 132 kV oil-filled cable in Britain, and was constructed by AEI. A new 132 kV link was commissioned in July 1972, this was the first major cable contract undertaken by the Southern Electricity Board.

References

1. "Cowes Power Station". nPower Media Centre. Archived from the original on 14 July 2011. Retrieved 28 February 2011.
2. "Cowes Power Station". Engineering Timelines. Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE). Retrieved 28 February 2011.
3. "Cowes Power Station". RWE Power. Archived from the original on 18 May 2010. Retrieved 28 February 2011.
4. "Coal-fired power stations - closure". UK Parliament. 16 January 1984. Retrieved 10 February 2020.
5. ^ The Electricity Council (1987). Electricity Supply in the United Kingdom: a Chronology. London: The Electricity Council. pp. 60, 87, 106. ISBN 085188105X.

v t e Electricity generation in South East England
Power stations	Biomass Active Slough Closed Didcot A (co-fired) Kingsnorth (co-fired) Coal Closed Brighton A + B Cowes Didcot A (co-fired) Earley Eastbourne Broomgrove Kingsnorth (co-fired) Littlebrook A, B + C Northfleet Osney Portsmouth Richborough Slough Southampton Gas Active Cowes Damhead Creek Didcot B Grain Humbly Grove Hythe Marchwood Medway Sevington Shoreham Storrington Closed Hastings Slough Geothermal Active Southampton Incinerators/Waste Active Allington Quarry Chineham Isle of Wight Marchwood Newhaven Portsmouth Slough Nuclear Closed Dungeness A Dungeness B Refused/cancelled Dungeness C Oil Closed Kingsnorth (co-fired) Fawley Grain Littlebrook A, B + C, D Marchwood Northfleet Richborough Solar Active Brighton Westmill Wind Active Green Park Gunfleet Sands Kentish Flats London Array Romney Marsh Rampion Thanet Westmill Refused/cancelled Navitus Bay Hydro Active Mapledurham Osney Reading Romney Sandford
Organisations	Brighton Electric Light Company Centrica Expro International Group Hammond Electric Light Company UK Power Networks Pre-nationalisation electric power companies Seeboard Southern Electric Western Power Distribution

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