Little Barford Power Station

Little Barford Power Station
Little Barford power station in 2006
Location of Little Barford Power Station
Official name	Little Barford power station
Country	England
Location	Bedfordshire
Coordinates	52°12′16″N 0°16′8″W / 52.20444°N 0.26889°W / 52.20444; -0.26889Coordinates: 52°12′16″N 0°16′8″W / 52.20444°N 0.26889°W / 52.20444; -0.26889
Commission date	1994
Operator(s)	Central Electricity Generating Board RWE npower
Thermal power station
Primary fuel	Natural gas-fired
Tertiary fuel	Fuel Oil
Combined cycle?	Yes
grid reference TL185577

Little Barford Power Station is a 740MWe gas-fired power station just north of the village of Little Barford (close to St Neots) in Bedfordshire, England. It lies just south of the A428 St Neots bypass and east of the Wyboston Leisure Park. The River Great Ouse runs alongside.

It is built on the site of a former coal-fired power station. This station had a generating capacity of 120 MW and was closed on 26 October 1981. Its demolition took place in 1986, an event covered by the children's TV programme Blue Peter. The two Parsons turbo-alternators were shipped to Malta. One was recommissioned as Unit 8 at Marsa Power Station and remained in service until 15 February 2015.

Construction of the gas-fired station started in 1994, and it opened in 1996. The company that built it, Swindon-based National Power, became Innogy plc in August 2000. That company was bought by the German electricity company, Essen-based RWE in March 2002, and became RWE npower. The station is now owned and operated by RWE Generation UK.

In 2002, a 12 MWe electrical storage facility was built by Regenesys Technologies Ltd (previously owned by Innogy plc but bought by VRB Power Systems in October 2004) which uses Polysulfide bromide flow batteries. Although the facility was never operated commercially, due to engineering issues in scaling up the technology.

The site was originally built by EGT, Atlantic Projects and Henry Boot, and went through a major upgrade in 2012