The four-unit Hinton Heavies station was operated by energy firm E.ON UK, and had a generating capacity of 2,000 megawatts.

The proposed replacement attracted substantial public protests and criticism, including the 2008 Camp for Climate Action.

The proposed station came under considerable criticism from groups including Christian Aid (who noted that the emissions from the plant would be over 10 times the annual emissions from Rwanda),[14] Greenpeace,[15] The Royal Society,[16] the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds,[17] the World Development Movement,[18] the World Wide Fund for Nature[19] and CPRE.

[20] Climate scientist and head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies James E. Hansen condemned the building of new coal power stations stating: "In the face of such threats [from climate change] it is madness to propose a new generation of power plants based on burning coal, which is the dirtiest and most polluting of all the fossil fuels.

[24] But in March 2009, Ed Miliband said that he was postponing a decision on Kingsnorth, and in the following month the E.ON chief executive said that, "Without commercial carbon capture, [the proposed station was] 'game over'".

Surge and make up capacity was provided on a station basis by two 1,500,000 gallon reserve feed water tanks.

Three 50 per cent duty Nash Hytor air extraction pumps were provided with an additional quick start exhauster.

two-pole generator was rated at 500 Megawatt with a power factor of 0.85, but they also provided a continuous over-load output of 526.5 MW with increased hydrogen pressure.

Water for cooling the turbine condensers was drawn from the River Medway; it entered the station through two 11 ft 3 in square concrete pressure culverts.

All water extracted from the river was returned via two culverts of similar size to the inlets passing over a stone weir to Damhead Creek.

The discharge culverts had vacuum-breaking valves to cushion any surges caused in the event of an emergency shutdown of the cooling water pumps.

Ash collected at the bottom of the boilers when in the coal burn regime and was removed after quenching by water sluices.

The water was passed through a cation unit, where the salts were converted into their corresponding acids and then through a scrubber tower for carbon dioxide removal.

Four 22.4 MW English Electric gas turbine generators were provided housed in a separate sound proof building.

The alternators supplied the 11 kV unit boards direct and each gas turbine was provided with an 11 kV/415 V transformer to power auxiliaries.

The electrical power was generated at 23,500 volts and, for reasons of economy, it was transmitted in the National Grid at much higher voltages.

The generators fed transformers which changed the voltage to 400,000 volts and were in turn connected to bus-bars by means of switches which controlled the power.

The bus-bars were a means of collecting the output from each generator allowing it to be distributed through various transmission lines carried by pylons across the country on the Super Grid.

Other transformers on site switched the voltage from 400,000 to 132,000 volts and fed a further system of bus-bars to which connections via underground cable circuits supplied power to the Medway towns.

At their subsequent trial they admitted trying to shut the station down but argued that they were legally justified because they were trying to prevent climate change from causing greater damage to property elsewhere around the world.

Evidence was heard from David Cameron's environment adviser Zac Goldsmith, and an Inuit leader from Greenland, both saying that climate change was already seriously affecting life around the world.

The six were acquitted after arguing that they were legally justified in their actions to prevent climate change from causing greater damage to property around the world.

It was the first case where preventing property damage caused by climate change has been used as part of a "lawful excuse" defence in court.

[33] In December 2008 Greenpeace received a letter from the Crown Prosecution Service revealing that the Attorney-General was close to referring the case of the Kingsnorth Six to the Court of Appeal in an effort to remove the defence of 'lawful excuse' from activists.

[40] On 29 October 2008, Greenpeace activists occupied part of the power station after accessing the site using boats including the Rainbow Warrior.

There was an hour-long stand-off with security staff before they boarded the plant's jetty and demonstrated while others set up camp on a concrete island owned by E.ON.

Protesters projected campaign messages on the building, and then on a bulldozer brought in by the company to block the image, until the early hours of the following morning when they were served with a high court injunction.

[41] On 28 November 2008 a lone protester entered the plant undetected and shut down unit 2, one of the station's 500 MW turbines, leaving a message reading "no new coal".

[42] On 22 June 2009, ten Greenpeace activists boarded a fully loaded coal delivery ship bound for Kingsnorth.

[43][44] As of 2022, a development, called MedwayOne, is planned to include storage, a data centre, lorry park, and manufacturing space.