Neptune Bank Power Station - Design and Specification

Design and Specification

The station was the first major design project of Charles Merz, of the Merz & McLellan consulting partnership, and the first power station Merz & McLellan designed in the Newcastle area.

The station's buildings were built from corrugated iron, and the boiler house adjoined the engine room on its south facing side. Each of these two buildings measured 100 feet (30 m) by 52 feet (16 m). To the north east of the main station buildings lay the station's cooling pond, where the station's circulating water was cooled by means of spray nozzles, capable of cooling 4,000,000 pounds of water per hour. This cooling system was adopted as it was cheaper than pumping water up from the nearby River Tyne which was 60 feet (18 m) below the level of the station. The station was also equipped with a testing pond, capable of absorbing up to 1,500 kW.

Coal was delivered to the station via the NER's North Tyneside Loop. An electric locomotive was used to convey the coal from the railway to the boiler house. The station's boiler house was equipped with four batteries of two Babcock & Wilcox boilers. Each boiler had a capacity of 1,000 horsepower and a working pressure of 200 psi. Each was fitted with superheaters and mechanical stokers and had a heating surface of 4,020 square feet, with a superheat of 100 - 120 degrees Fahrenheit. Each could evaporate 14,000 pounds of water per hour. Ash waste from the boilers was discharged into trucks.

The station initially generated electricity using four 700 kilowatt (kW) alternators, each driven by a slow-speed triple expansion marine type reciprocating engine, built by Wigham Richardson & Co. and the Wallsend Slipway & Engineering Company. The station was the first in the world to generate electricity using three-phase electrical power distribution at a voltage of 5,500 V, and the first to generate direct current at different voltages. After the opening of Carville Power Station in 1904, the voltage of transmission was raised to 6,000 V.

In 1902, two 1,500-kW Parsons steam turbine driven turbo-alternators were added to the initial equipment at the station. At the time, these were the largest three-phase steam turbine driven alternators in the world, as well as being the first of the barrel type rotary design. Results gained from the turbines influenced the Cunard Steamship Company to install steam turbines on the Mauretania. The turbines drove 6,000 V three-phase alternators, supplying current to motor-generators and transformers in the substations attached to the distribution network. The motor-generators in the substations provided DC from the supplied AC and the transformers stepped-down the 6,000 V supply to 200 V for lighting use and 400 V for industrial use.

By 1904, there were a total of nine different generating sets operating at the power station. Sets No. 1 and 2 were DC generators driven by 300 HP two-crank compound engines running at 380 RPM, power from which supplied DC network in Wallsend and Walker. Set No. 3 was a 50 kW set used for exciting purposes only. Sets No. 4 and 5 were used as balancers and motor generators and had a combined capacity of 150 kW. Sets No. 6, 7, 8 and 9 were each driven by 1,400 HP engines and in turn each drove a 750 kW alternator. The two Parsons sets worked alongside these.

By 1912, the NESCo system, which the station was part of, was the largest integrated power system in Europe.