History
The Bouchain thermal power station was a French coal-fired power plant located in Bouchain in the Nord department and operated by EDF . It was commissioned in 1970 with two x 250MW steam turbines and ceased production in April 2015.
The Bouchain thermal power station is the only one to have a cooling tower with a height of 125 meters, visible from far away, and used water from the Scheldt Canal.
EDF, in partnership with General Electric, has built a new gas-fired combined cycle plant within the grounds which was commissioned on 26 July 2016.
Our visit
This was one of the more challenging power stations we had visited recently in France, with constant patrols throughout the night, torchlight illuminating our proposed access point once every few minutes or so. Not a great window to figure out how to get ourselves in, but we managed it just before torchlight was flashing in through the windows of the building we had just entered! Add to that all the activity from the live site, which still uses many of the older services on the site and it becomes pretty interesting. I'm not sure what would happen if we were caught in of EDF's big old monsters, but I know it wouldn't be good... and I really really don't want to find out.
Visited with @darbians
The Bouchain thermal power station was a French coal-fired power plant located in Bouchain in the Nord department and operated by EDF . It was commissioned in 1970 with two x 250MW steam turbines and ceased production in April 2015.
The Bouchain thermal power station is the only one to have a cooling tower with a height of 125 meters, visible from far away, and used water from the Scheldt Canal.
EDF, in partnership with General Electric, has built a new gas-fired combined cycle plant within the grounds which was commissioned on 26 July 2016.
Our visit
This was one of the more challenging power stations we had visited recently in France, with constant patrols throughout the night, torchlight illuminating our proposed access point once every few minutes or so. Not a great window to figure out how to get ourselves in, but we managed it just before torchlight was flashing in through the windows of the building we had just entered! Add to that all the activity from the live site, which still uses many of the older services on the site and it becomes pretty interesting. I'm not sure what would happen if we were caught in of EDF's big old monsters, but I know it wouldn't be good... and I really really don't want to find out.
Visited with @darbians
