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Bodmin Avenue, SLOUGH, SL2 1SL

Once privately owned but now owned by Scottish & Southern and still in use burning biomass and compacted waste paper to generate about 80 MW. This is one of two cooling towers on site.

Slough was the first privately owned power station and an early innovator in CHP (Combined Heat and Power) supplying steam to heat factories all over the industrial estate. It now has gas fluidized bed reactors and can use waste paper and plastic collected on the estate as a fuel.

The two cooling towers on the north side of Edinburgh Avenue, with just a wisp of steam coming from the left one.

This was until recently the private power station for Slough Trading Estate. This has been supplying heat and power to the estate since 1920. Originally coal fired, it has now gone over to predominantly biomass (wood) firing. There is also some natural gas and heavy fuel oil in the mix. The modern building on the right houses a wood briquetting plant. The tall building in front of the chimney houses one of the modern wood fired plants including a Peter Brotherhood steam turbine with roof mounted air-cooled condenser. The tall building beyond the chimney houses two fluidised bed boilers that originally burnt coal but now burn wood. Older buildings house further older boilers (gas fired) and the four remaining steam turbines (one Siemens, one Brotherhood and two by C A Parsons). There is also a John Brown gas turbine of 23 MW. The two cooling towers are also part of the plant, although there is also pass-out steam at 14 bar to other users on the estate. It was recently acquired by Scottish & Southern, presumably to improve their CO2 emissions as it is biomass fired.

The nearer chimney is refractory lined as it receives hot gas turbine exhaust. The turbine can be operated open cycle or combined cycle. The tall light building houses the "fibre-fuel" (www.fibrefuel.co.uk ) fired installation and the large pipe up the end is the exhaust from a big Peter Brotherhood turbine that is on its way to an air cooled roof mounted condenser. This is a fascinating plant with many unique features and is well worth a visit if you are in to that sort of thing. Interior photos are not for Geograph but are available on request.

The tall building on the right is the boiler house holding two fluidised bed water tube boilers that are about 36m tall and run at 87 bar. The view from the top is spectacular. This power station has developed over nearly 90 years and is crammed in to a very small space compared to its former CEGB brethren.

These large cooling chimneys, situated in Slough Trading Estate, are visible for miles around.

On the south side of Edinburgh Avenue.