Peterhead Power Station

Peterhead Power Station stands on the flat coastal plain near Boddam, south-east of Peterhead in Aberdeenshire. It sits beside Sandford Lodge, a farmhouse built around 1800, and beside the A90 trunk road. The plant began as an oil-fired station in the late 1970s with two large boilers. Later it switched to burning natural gas piped in from the St Fergus terminal. In the 1990s two smaller gas turbines were added to burn sour gas from the Miller Field. The station has repeatedly changed how it generates electricity. In 2000 a repowering project added three new gas turbines to drive an old steam turbine, raising efficiency from 37% to 57%. By 2007 it became Scotland’s largest power station, though its export limit is 1 550 MW. A fatal accident occurred in 1982 when a machinist was crushed during a lift. More recently the site has hosted experimental hydrogen generation and new carbon-capture plans. Visitors see three modern Siemens gas turbines and a single older steam turbine. The plant is surrounded by flat farmland and the North Sea. A high-integrity carbon-steel pipeline carries gas from the reception facility to the boilers. The station now runs flexibly between 240 MW and 400 MW, with extra capacity on standby in winter.