generating units consisting of International Combustion boilers and English Electric turbo-alternator sets.

[1] The final unit was commissioned in July 1959 and station was officially opened by the 11th Duke of Devonshire on 2 October that year.

generating units equipped with Babcock & Wilcox boilers and Associated Electrical Industries (AEI) turbo-alternator sets.

[3] The output from the Willington Power Stations was fed into the 132,000 volt grid system (Nos.

[2] Although most of the stations were demolished at the turn of the millennium, the five cooling towers continue to dominate the skyline of the local area.

[7] The annual electricity output of Willington A & B were:[7][8] The 'A' and 'B' Stations were unique among power plants in the United Kingdom.

The main reason for adopting this unusual plan was to reduce the capital cost of the station by the use of a special temporary lifting rig for site handling of the 160 ton generator stator.

At Willington a large saving of the costs was achieved by installing overhead cranes and support structures rated at 50 tons lifting capacity, intended to handle only the second heaviest item of plant.

Their milling plant, the lower parts of the furnaces and the boiler top sections were enclosed in weatherproof buildings.

The 'B' station boilers, apart from their milling plant, were almost completely outdoor and had only small weatherproof rooms at each end of their drums to house certain equipment.

The power station was also the subject of a short documentary by Channel 4 titled "Drones in Forbidden Zones".

In addition, on the ‘A’ station, there were three similar pumps which delivered water from the condensers to the cooling towers when there was low river flow, each of these handled 5 million gallons per hour.

The doors in the bottom of each wagon opened automatically as the train went over the hopper beneath the rail tracks, the coal then fell through onto the conveyor.

Some of this was sold for use in civil works such as motorway construction or for the manufacture of lightweight building blocks and the remainder was taken by lorry to gravel pits.