Carville power stations

Carville Power Station refers to a pair of now partially demolished coal-fired power stations, situated in North East England on the north bank of the River Tyne at Wallsend. The two stations were built alongside each other on a riverside site about 5 mi (8.0 km) downstream of Newcastle upon Tyne. Carville A Power Station, the first station on the site was opened in 1904, and Carville B Power Station was opened in 1916 to its south. The stations were a major factor in increasing the productivity of the neighbouring shipyards, which became some of the biggest in the world, as well as benefiting the nearby engineering works and coal mines by providing them with a cheap and reliable source of electricity. It also played a major role in enabling the electrification of the Tyneside railways and tramways. The station's design set the pattern for power station layout and design for most of the early twentieth century, as it was the first in the world to use the "unit system" of layout, whereby each boiler and turbine generating set is directly connected electrically to an alternator, and can work independently from any other generating unit in the station. At various times the stations were the largest in the UK.