Ironbridge
Ironbridge is a coal fired power station capable of generating 1,000MW of electricity. Located in the Severn Gorge, it is only 0.5 miles upstream from Ironbridge, a world heritage site.
Ironbridge power station produces enough power to supply approximately 750,000 homes.
The stations two 500MW units can each produce 12x more power than Concord's jet engines. The low pressure blades are nearly 1 metre long and with the turbine turning at its fixed speed of 3000rpm the tip speed of the last row of blades is approx 2,000km/h, that's twice the speed of sound.
Waste and environmental management
Ironbridge is a coal-fired site and we are therefore sensitive to our potential environmental impact and we do what we can to minimise this. Low NOx Burners and Electrostatic precipitators are installed at Ironbridge to help reduce our environmental impact.
We have waste minimisation and recycling schemes on site and recycle all scrap metal, waste oil, paper and cardboard. All furnace bottom ash and some pulverised fuel ash is sold for use in the construction industry.
There are owl nesting boxes on site.
Community
Around 3,500 people visit our Energy Education centre every year. The visitors are mainly school children but we also get a whole range of community groups. The focus is on educating both children and adults on environmental and sustainability issues around power generation, in renewable technologies and energy conservation. The Energy Education centre also has classroom facilities for groups to use for a range of activities from the study of plants, insects and animals, to art.
We also have a nature trail in our grounds which is open to all members of the public and attracts around 2,000 visitors annually. The diversity of habitats and lack of disturbance helps promote the well being of locally scare species and community groups such as the Shropshire Wildlife Trust come to site to study locally rare plants and animals.
Hundreds of fish have been rescued from the cooling ponds at Ironbridge Power Station. A variety of different species had been living in the ponds as a result of being washed in from the River Severn as small fry. Many others had developed from eggs and had been living in the ponds for up to four years.
A joint mission by power station staff and the Environment Agency (EA) on 10 August saw rescuers climbing down the sheer walls of the ponds to catch the fish in seine nets. Around 230 chub and barbell were rescued along with some gudgeon and stone loach. All the fish were returned to the River Severn downstream of the power station.
Bill Burleigh, one of the Environment Agency's rescuers said "I've undertaken a number of fish rescues over the years but this has got to be one of the strangest locations. The fish all seemed pretty healthy and hopefully they will thrive in their new, more traditional home."
