Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station

Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station is a coal-fired power station owned and operated by Uniper at Ratcliffe-on-Soar in Nottinghamshire, England. Commissioned in 1968 by the Central Electricity Generating Board, the station has a capacity of 2,000 MW.DescriptionThe power station occupies a prominent position close to junction 24 of the M1, the River Trent and the Midland Main Line (adjacent to East Midlands Parkway station) and dominates the skyline for many miles around with its eight cooling towers and 199m tall chimney. It has four coal-fired boilers made by Babcock & Wilcox, each of which drives a 500 megawatt (MW) Parsons generator set. This gives the station a total generating capacity of 2,116 MW, which is enough electricity to meet the needs of approximately 2.02 million homes.Uniper has its Technology Centre at the site, where it carries out research and development on power generation.Environmental performanceThe plant emits 8–10 million tonnes of carbon dioxide annually making it the 18th highest -emitting power station in Europe. Some 48 million cubic metres of cooling water is taken from the nearby River Trent. Evaporative losses through the eight cooling towers account for some 11 million cubic metres of that water.