A combined coal and oil power plant, Didcot A, was the first station on the site, which opened in 1970[4][5] and was demolished between 2014 and 2020.

A large section of the boiler house at Didcot A Power Station collapsed on 23 February 2016 while the building was being prepared for demolition.

The combined power stations featured a chimney, demolished in 2020, which was one of the tallest structures in the UK, and could be seen from much of the surrounding landscape.

RWE Npower applied for a certificate of immunity from English Heritage, to stop the towers being listed, to allow their destruction.

One of the Hinton Heavies, construction of the 2,000 MWe power station for the Central Electricity Generating Board began during 1964, and was completed in 1968 at a cost of £104m.

[1] It was located on a 1.2 square kilometres (300 acres) site, formerly part of the Ministry of Defence Central Ordnance Depot.

There was strong opposition from Sutton Courtenay but the yes vote was carried, due to the number of jobs that would be created in the area.

The original design was for eight cooling towers but the consultant architect Frederick Gibberd proposed that the number be reduced to six to mitigate the visual impact of the station.

[12] English Heritage declined to give listed building status to Didcot A Power Station in 2013.

[14] In 1996 and 1997, Thales UK was awarded contracts by Innogy, now Npower, to implement the APMS supervisory and control system on all of the four units, then enabling optimised emissions monitoring and reporting.

[14] Between 2005 and 2007 Didcot installed overfire air systems on the four boilers to reduce emissions of nitrous oxide.

Some ash from Didcot A was used to manufacture building blocks at a factory on the adjacent Milton Park and transported to Thatcham (near Newbury, Berkshire) for the manufacture of Thermalite aerated breeze blocks using both decarbonized fly and raw ash, but most was mixed with water and pumped via a pipeline to former quarries in Radley.

Greenpeace asserted that Didcot Power Station was the second most polluting in Britain after Drax in North Yorkshire,[15] whilst Friends of the Earth describe it as the ninth worst in the UK.

[17] Didcot A opted out of the Large Combustion Plant Directive which meant it was only allowed to run for up to 20,000 hours after 1 January 2008 and had to close by 31 December 2015 at the latest.

The decision was made not to install flue gas desulphurisation equipment which would have allowed continued generation.

Studies did continue into whether there was a possibility that Didcot A might be modernised with new super-clean coal burning capabilities; with RWE partly involved in the study,[18] however in September 2012 RWE Npower announced that Didcot A using its current coal burning capabilities would close at the end of March 2013.

[2][3] In 2007, Didcot was identified as a possible site for a new nuclear power station[19] but, as of August 2019, nothing further had been heard of the proposal.

[25] On 23 February 2016, a large section of the former boiler house at Didcot A power station collapsed while the building was being prepared for demolition.

[26] The rubble from the collapse was 9 metres (30 ft) high and unstable, which along with the instability of the remaining half of the building hampered search efforts.

[13] At the time of the collapse it was being prepared for explosive demolition on 5 March, a process which involved cutting the structure to weaken it.

Robots were used to place the explosive charges due to the danger and the site was demolished just after 6 o'clock in the morning (BST).

Like many power stations built at the time, Didcot was served by a rail loop which is a branch from the Great Western Main Line.

The service ran from Avonmouth in Bristol, down the main line, reversing at Didcot Parkway and into the power station.

Parsons & Co, Ltd Maximum continuous rating: 500 MW at 23,500 volts Phase current: Three phases at 14,450 amps each Efficiency: 98.63% Stator cooling: Demineralised water Rotor cooling: Hydrogen Manufacturer: Babcock & Wilcox Ltd Maximum continuous rating: 422 kg/s (3,350,000 lb/hr) Efficiency: 90.76% Steam at superheater: 165.5 bars (2,400 lb/sq.in.)

It uses a combined cycle gas turbine type power plant to generate up to 1,440 MWe of electricity.

On 19 October 2014 just after 8 pm, three of the mechanical wooden cooling towers serving one of the steam turbines at Didcot B caught fire.

Built in 1968, it uses four open-cycle gas turbines, which are each powered by a pair of Rolls-Royce Avon engines to generate 100 MW of electricity.

[13] In 1991, Marina Warner made a BBC documentary about the station, describing the cooling towers as having "a sort of incredible furious beauty".

[55] Artist Roger Wagner painted Menorah, a crucifixion scene featuring the towers of Didcot power station.