Agecroft Power Station
Agecroft Power Station was situated between the eastern bank of the Manchester, Bolton and Bury Canal and the western bank of the River Irwell at Agecroft, Pendlebury, near Manchester, (opposite to Agecroft Colliery).
Agecroft A Station
The station was built for Salford Corporation; the original scheme made provision for 4 main generating units, each of 12,500 kW, but only 3 were installed.
1925 Formal opening of the station (see British Pathe newsreel of the occasion [2]).
The station used three 12,500 and one 20,000 kilowatt (kW) Metropolitan-Vickers turbo generators to give a total generating capacity of 57,500 kW. These were supplied with steam from six Babcock & Wilcox, 65,000 pounds per hour (8.2 kg/s), and two John Thompson, 80,000 lb/hr (10.1 kg/s) boilers. These operated at 325 psi at 720 °F (B&W) and 780 °F.
This station was later referred to as "A".
1928 Selected under the North-West England and North Wales Electricity Scheme
1928 Plans were drawn up for an extension of the station; a 20,000 kW turbo-generator unit and two boilers were then installed.
1948 Nationalisation of the electricity industry.
Following the rebuilding of some of the original chain grate coal fired boilers in the A station as oil fired units the needed extra steam capacity required for the 20,000 kW unit was supplied from the B station extra boiler capacity via a steam line several hundred feet in length. The pressure step down valves were located at the B station
Agecroft B Station
1950 A second station was commissioned on the site (B); this had four International Combustion pulverised coal boilers and two Metropolitan Vickers 55 megawatt (MW) generating sets.
1955 An extension to 345 MW was authorised in July 1955.
The 'B' station had two hyperbolic Mouchel concrete cooling towers, each rated for 3.08 million gallons per hour.
Agecroft C Station
1959 The C Station was commissioned; this used two 124 megawatt (MW) Metropolitan Vickers generating sets giving a total generation capacity of 358 MW across the B and C stations. The 'C' station's turbines were supplied with steam from two 860,000 lb/hr (108.4 kg/s) International Combustion Limited boilers operating at 1500 psi and 1000 °F (103.4 bar and 538 °C).
The stations operated until 1993 and were demolished the following year. HM Prison Forest Bank has since been built on the site.[1]
Stations B and C were totally demolished, the building of station A survived and has been put to use as the HQ of a Salford company, IT Lab[2]