Jobs go in partial closures of power stations

Keadby Power Station, near Scunthorpe, will be partly shut down this summer while Ferrybridge Power Station, next to the junction of the A1 and M62, will see two of its coal fired units closed before March next year because they do not meet new emissions targets.

Around 50 full time roles will go from the 225 at Ferrybridge while Keadby will see staff numbers fall from 55 to between 10 and 15.

However the station’s owners Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) said the roles at Ferrybridge will be lost through “normal attrition” with no compulsory redundancies, while the majority of people affected at Keadby will be redeployed within the company.

An SSE spokesman said the company was committed to the future of Ferrybridge which will see two units continuing until at least June 2020 and the creation of a new £300m multifuel generator which will create around 50 full time jobs when it is operational in 2015. The plant will turn processed waste into electricity.

The two units which will close at Ferrybridge were not included in the Large Combustion Plant Directive and so must be shut down once they have used up a limit of 20,000 operating hours or by the end of 2015.

SSE announced yesterday 
that this was now expected to happen before the end of March next year.

Two other units can continue, however, as they have been fitted with “flue-gas desulphurisation” technology which means they meet European Union rules.

SSE have completed a £100m programme of upgrade works at its Keadby and Medway gas-fired power stations which would allow them to be recommissioned.

It said tough market conditions had forced it to delay recommissioning Keadby as the difference between the cost of gas and the price of electricity generated from it was at a historic low.