Carrington Power Station Noise at Weekend

Posted at 10:37 am on 6th April, 2016

Apologies from Carrington Power Station

First of all, we would like to apologise for the disturbance caused over the weekend.  We are currently in the middle of the commissioning phase of the power station and it was necessary to run the plant over a number of continuous hours as part of this process.  This is the final phase of the construction of the power station and in no way reflects how the plant will operate in the future. When commissioned the  plant must adhere to strict operational limits set out in the licence agreements form the relevant authorities, including noise.

As communicated and discussed with local councils, authorities and  residents liaison group, we have taken every measure to reduce the disturbances to our neighbours and community during this temporary commissioning period  including:

• ·        Plant silencers to reduce noise levels on temporary steam emissions.
• ·        Minimise out of hours commissioning (we did not run work over the bank holiday weekend to avoid disturbance to local residents)
• ·        Where possible minimise Saturday commissioning times. 

Moving forward, we are aware that there may be occasions when steam from the plant will have a visual impact on the local vicinity.  Please be assured that it is only steam (water vapour) that is being emitted and although visible, it is not harmful to the atmosphere.  With regard to noise, we are monitoring the noise levels during the commissioning phase and will try to mitigate any further disturbance, particularly during the evening.

The commissioning process of Unit 1 will be completed within this week and the same commissioning sequence for Unit 2 is planned to start WK15/16 (approximately in the middle of April). It should have approximately the same duration as for Unit 1 of approximately 8 -11  days with varying levels of possible noise and steam similar to Unit 1.

Once again we would like to stress that this is a temporary activity and we are endeavouring to have it completed as carefully as possible with the smallest impact on our neighbours.