Geograph - photograph every grid square

SK7985 : West Burton Power Station The shorter metal chimneys in the centre are the open cycle gas turbine exhaust stacks. These are a common feature of conventional power stations and could be used to feed the grid at peak periods and more importantly for "black starting" a station dead and off the grid. The auxiliaries in a big station need as much power as a typical 1930s station would produce in total. Black starting is not theoretical either - after the "great storm" of 1987 some stations in the south had to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.