The 360 MW dual coal- and oil-fired Tilbury A Power Station operated from 1956 until 1981 when it was mothballed, prior to demolition in 1999.

[1] The 1,428 MW Tilbury B Power Station operated between 1968 and 2013 and was fueled by coal,[1] as well as co-firing with oil and, from 2011, biomass.

Tilbury A power station was planned from 1947 by the County of London Electricity Supply Company Limited.

The waste water and a small part of the station remained due to being a listed building[5] The site was entirely cleared in 2019 for the construction of the Tilbury2 port.

[7] In July 2013 RWE npower announced they were halting the conversion due to difficulty in converting and financing the plant.

[10] RWE had also planned to build a clean coal power station at Blyth but they have since postponed both schemes.

[4] The A station was built on the 226 acre (91.5 hectare) site and was a steel framed construction with elevations in London stock brick.

It was designed as a coal-fired station with coal delivered to the jetty on the Thames and stored initially to the east and later to the north of the building.

[12] In 1963 Tilbury A was used in experiments by the CEGB on the behaviour of pollutants (principally sulphur dioxide) in flue gas plumes emitted from the power station chimneys.

The taller boiler house block was orientated north–south to the west of the adjoining turbine hall; control rooms and offices were at the south end.

When all four units were available the combined output capacity was 1428 MW, enough power for 1.4 million people, approximately 80% of the population of Essex.

In addition to the steam generating sets Tilbury power station had auxiliary gas turbines for peak-shaving.

Essex Chief Fire Officer David Johnson reported that firefighting operations were hindered by the fact that the blaze was high up in the main structure of the station, which was also heavily smoke-logged.

[21] Despite initial reports, another fire in the adjacent Tilbury docks which started around the same time was not connected to the larger blaze at the power station.

It took firefighters several hours to bring the power station fire under control, and relief crews remained at the site for days afterward dousing and removing embers.

[23] Ash from the boilers at Tilbury power station was deposited on the low lying marshland to the east of the site.

The land at Goshems Farm East Tilbury had also been subject to other landfill activity over the years and the fill comprised a mixture of ash and glass bottles.

This would entail raising the height of the land using soil from civil engineering works along the River Thames and restore the site to high quality arable farmland.

[26] The Thurrock Flexible Generation Plant is a planned natural gas engine and battery energy electricity supply facility.

[27] The plant will be developed, owned and operated by Thurrock Power Limited, a subsidiary of Statera Energy.

[27] The Tilbury Green Power plant is an operational electricity generating facility which uses wood as a fuel source.

[28] Flue gases from the boiler are treated by emissions control technology including Selective Non-Catalytic Reduction (SNCR), fabric filters, and dry lime and activated carbon injection.