Halewood coal fired power plant closes this month. Will it be missed?
The plant opened in 1964, and is now 53 years old. At opening, the eight units each had a 200MW generator, for a total Nameplate of 1600MW. As the plant is now so old, those old generators cannot make their original maximum power, but even now they are still managing to deliver a total Nameplate of between 1374 and 1380MW, which is still around 86% of its original rated maximum power, which is not bad for generators that are now 53 years old.
For the sake of comparison, a major study of nearly 3,000 on-shore British wind farms found that the turbines have a very short operating life, and the findings said that they had a lifetime of only 12 to 15 years, and not the 20 to 25 year lifespans applied in politicized government and industry projections. The report also concluded that a typical wind turbine generated more than twice as much electricity during its first year than upon reaching 15 years of use. Performance deterioration for off shore installations is even far worse.
So that 14% reduction in power output after 53 years operation of Hazelwood stands up well when compared to wind power turbine longevity and generation ability.
