Croydon has a long history with the Beddington Sewage Farm, and is a member of the South London Waste Partnership.

A condition of the contract was that British Thomson Houston would initially run the power station, whose resident engineer was Mr. A L C Fell.

His chief assistant Charles Merz took over a year later[5] and who in 1925/6 was consulted for Britain’s National Grid as a pioneer of transmission systems.

[4][7] Initially the electricity supplied a small compulsory area of about 1⁄2 sq mi (1.3 km2), composed mainly of shops and businesses.

[7] By 1901 the generated power had increased to over 1.8MW, now distributed via 26 substations to supply an area of about 12 sq mi (31 km2) to its nearly 800 customers.

[6] Separate generators provided an additional 600kW DC and the steam was recycled through 3 wooden cooling towers.

To reduce transmission losses, electricity was transmitted at 5,000v to outlying districts and AC was used there for street lighting.

The power station also provided electricity for the trams, the principal route running from Norbury to Purley.

In 1927 Croydon Corporation adopted the standard supply of 230V AC[9] and in 1928 placed a contract for two additional wooden cooling towers.

[13] The site had expanded from its origins on the north side of Factory Lane (51°22′38″N 0°06′45″W / 51.377328°N 0.112372°W / 51.377328; -0.112372) to the south side (51°22′35″N 0°06′49″W / 51.376524°N 0.113645°W / 51.376524; -0.113645), extending to Wandle Park in the south and the Croydon and Wimbledon railway, to the west that brought coal to the power station.

In 1959 this was supplemented with a backup steam locomotive from Littlebrook Power Station, built by W. G. Bagnall in 1946.

[31] A white sludge built up in the condensers, which had to be manually removed once a month and descaled three or four times a year with acid.

The sewage water was fed through a sand filter that reduced the particulates from 100ppm to less than 20ppm, but had little effect on the sludge.

Croydon B had a fleet of three shunting locomotives, all built by Peckett and Sons with the works numbers No.2103, No.2104 and No.2105.

The two large chimneys were retained:[26] they are now capped with blue and yellow bands (IKEA's corporate colours), and remain a local landmark.

These provided a high pressure gas blast which drove the turbines attached to a Parsons 70 MW, 11kV alternator.

[24] Croydon B Gas Turbine plant annual electricity output GWh.The industry had been privatised in 1989, and in 1999 the secretary of state for trade and industry, Stephen Byers declined to object to a gas-fired power station at Croydon, stating diversity and security needs.

It was built on part of the old gasworks site, near today’s Waddon Marsh tram-stop that had become British Gas property (51°22′35″N 0°06′59″W / 51.37644°N 0.11637°W / 51.37644; -0.11637).

[37] It consists of an open cycle gas turbine (OCGT), a Rolls-Royce Trent engine, and generates 50 MW of electricity.

[42][45] The spent steam is condensed by air and recycled, while the exhaust combustion gases are filtered to remove particulates, nitrous oxide, acid gases (e.g. CO2) and adsorb heavy metals, dioxins, furans and volatile organic compounds before being released into the atmosphere.

"Street lighting by electric lamps (with special references to the systems in use at Croydon England)".