Case Study: Power Station, West Melton
Maintaining the UK's network of power stations is a costly and time-consuming business. Each and every power station across the National Grid's network has to be visited by engineers every five years, so the traditional concrete and steel structures can be treated against weathering and general wear and tear.
Little wonder, then, that the National Grid Plc decided it wanted to do things differently when it started developing a new 132kV power station in West Melton. So it approached Alifabs, with a view to moving to aluminium for the power station's support structures - a move that should result in a vastly improved 40-year maintenance cycle, thanks to aluminium's greater durability.
The only problem, of course, was that since aluminium had never been trialled before in a power station environment, Alifabs had to basically develop a whole new manufacturing infrastructure from scratch to make the project possible.
This involved working together with engineers from the National Grid to ensure that the structures would be made using the correct British Standard structural sections. Since these sections weren't previously available in the aluminium world, Alifabs had to cut new dies and produce totally new extrusions in order to meet the National Grid requirements.
And that was just the start. For as the project developed, Alifabs also dedicated a huge amount of effort to everything from developing prototypes and manufacturing jigs to buying new ‘Push/Pull MIG welding gear and setting up no less than seven dedicated welding bays, all manned by tested and certified welders. Only by doing all this could Alifabs deliver the required number of frames each week.
With the project completed on time and to spec, people around West Melton should at least now feel confident that the next time they suffer a power cut, it shouldn't be down to any failures in their local power station's supporting structures!
