Longannet power station

Longannet power station stood on the north bank of the Firth of Forth near Kincardine in Fife. It was Scotland’s last coal-fired power station and the largest in Europe when it opened in 1973. The plant had a generating capacity of 2,400 megawatts, the highest in Scotland. Its single 183-metre chimney dominated the Forth skyline for decades. The station used water from the river for cooling instead of cooling towers. It was built on land reclaimed from the Firth using ash from an earlier power station. Longannet was worth the journey for its scale and engineering. At full operation it burned up to 4,500,000 tonnes of coal each year. Four Foster Wheeler boilers fed two 300 MW turbo generators, producing over 9,500 GWh of electricity in 2012. The station pioneered pollution controls, installing low-NOx burners and gas-reburn systems that cut emissions by up to 50%. It also trialled carbon capture in 2009, the first such unit in the UK. Visitors once found a vast industrial complex with a coal store holding two million tonnes. A conveyor belt carried 3,500 tonnes of coal an hour to the boiler house. The turbine hall housed the General Electric generators, while electrostatic precipitators reduced dust. After demolition in 2021, the site is now a flat open space beside the river. The cooling channel still carries warm water back to the Forth, marking the spot where Scotland’s biggest power station once stood.