Comissioned in 1996, Connah's Quay is E.ON UK's largest combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) power station. The station has four single shaft units, each with a capacity of 330MW giving Connah's Quay an overall generation capacity of 1420MW- enough to power half of Wales.

The power station   is unique amongst E.ON UK's sites in that gas from Liverpool Bay is delivered straight to the site through a 27km pipeline from the Point of Ayr gas terminal.

Connah's Quay has a gas treatment plant that can process any gas not used in the power station so that it can be exported into the National Transmission System. Domestic gas needs a lower sulphur and nitrogen content and any remaining water needs to be removed.

The Environment

Connah's Quay is located on the Dee Estuary   - a site of international importance for wildfowl and waders, and designated a Site of Special Scientific Importance (SSSI), a Wetland of International Importance under the Ramsar Convention and a Special Protection Area (SPA) under the EC Conversation of Wild Birds. It is particularly important that we do not impact upon the environment here and in September 1998 the SSSI was extended to include the 11ha mitigation area as well as the bunded pools and saltings.   In December 2009 the area was designated as a Special Area of Conservation (SAC)3.

Key steps we have taken to protect the environment are:

• Connah's Quay was constructed off-site and brought here for assembly to minimise disturbance during the building process.
• Use of hybrid cooling towers to reduce visible vapour plume.
• Cooling water is only abstracted and returned to the River Dee at specific times around full tide.
• The creation of three separate conservation areas: a salt marsh, salt water pools, and an 11 hectare nature reserve. In total Connah's Quay manages almost 20 hectares of conservation areas. The number of many special of wintering wildfowl and waders are a significant proportion of the total European wintering population.

We attract a number of internationally significant birds:

• Pintail (Anas acuta)
• Shelduck (Tadorna tadorna)
• Oystercatcher (Haematopus ostralegus)
• Redshank (Tringa totanus)
• Teal (Anas crecca)
• Curlew (Numenius arquata)
• Black-tailed godwit (Limosa limosa)

Additionally, of national significance these birds have also been sighted:

• Wintering or migratory dunlin (Calidris alpina)
• Lapwing (Vanellus vanellus)

Connah's Quay leases to the Deeside Naturalist Society who manage a Field Study Centre which overlooks the Dee Estuary. You can contact the Deeside Naturalist Society for more details.

Community

The Education Visitor Centre provides an interactive and fun learning experience which further develops our education support programme. This is based on the National Curriculum electricity and environment areas and helps give young people the additional benefits of learning about electricity in a real power station rather than a classroom. Teachers helped the station to design the layout and exhibits.

The education visitor centre is housed in a purpose built education building which also houses the CCGT Simulator. Over 10 years, we have received over 20,000 visitors from local schools.