There were two power stations on the Willington site, both with similar installed capacity and a total output of 808MW. Willington ‘A’ station began generating in December 1957 and its four 104MW boiler/turbine-generator units were all commissioned by 1959. The first of the two 200MW units in the later and more advanced ‘B’ station started to produce power in June 1962 and a second unit was commissioned in March 1963.
The ‘A’ and ‘B’ stations’ main buildings were designed to harmonise architecturally with each other and they were separated by a line of buildings which housed service departments common to both.
Both ‘A’ and ‘B’ stations were also notable in this country for the ‘part enclosure’ of their boiler plant instead of the more conventional scheme where all the boilers are completely housed in one overall structure. The ‘A’ station boilers were described as semi-outdoor. Their milling plant, the lower parts of the furnaces and the boiler top sections were enclosed inn weatherproof buildings. The ‘B’ station boilers, apart from their milling plant, were almost completely outdoor and had only small weatherproof rooms at each end of their drums to house certain equipment.
