Aberthaw Power Station
Living not to far away from this, this man made industrial landscape skyline is something that can be seen for miles around. Drive the 5 mile lane and you’ll see it, go to Barrybados and look over and you’ll see it. Located by Gileston and East Aberthaw she sits right on the coastline by Gileston beach, or Limpet Bay to the locals. The power station features a sea based cooling station that sits within the sea, cold sea water is pumped into the power station where it cools the site down before being pumped back out to sea where fishermen congregate for the rich fishing the warm water offers.
When running she was a coal-fired power plant with an output capacity of around 1,560 MW, enough power to meet the needs of 1.5 million homes.
RWE who own Aberthaw power station decided to close and shut down the site a year early with the plant formally being closed in March 2020. RWE cited unfavourable market conditions for coal-based power generation in the UK as the reason for it’s closure. Even with new technologies introduced to reduce emissions such as the Flue Gas Desulphurisation (FGD) technology that reduces sulphur emissions by up to 95% and the installation of low NOx boiler technology which reduced emissions by over 90% it wasn’t enough to save it. The burning of wood from cut down trees was also trailed before the plug was pulled and the doors shut.
Recently ownership has changed and a consortium of local authorities have banded together called CCR or Cardiff Capital Region. They have purchased the site with the intention of creating a tidal lagoon and green energy park. Even though the doors are closed and the site shut down from making new energy, the site is still run and manned with a skeleton crew on site to keep the site running.
These preliminary images are taken as a flâneur of the exterior area around the power station, firstly the village of Gileston that is a stones thrown from what I could call the rear access and a complete juxtaposition to the power station that sits practically in the villagers back gardens. The images then are taken from the main entrance to the site before then the rear access via Gileston beach and onto The Lays at Aberthaw where the coal ash or ‘slag’ heap can be fully appreciated for its height in relation to the chimney and the general landscape.
