1. Originally owned by the Central Electricity Authority, the coal-fired power stations on the mouth of the river Usk near Newport supply electricity to the Newport area. Uskmouth 'A' was officially opened on 7 October 1953 having taken five years to build on a 600 acre site. At the time of opening, Uskmouth 'A' used the largest caisson in the world. Responsibility for the development of Usmouth 'A' lied with T. H. Wood, Borough Electrical Engineer for Newport, who had been appointed consulting engineer for the station, although when the electricty supply industry was nationalised in 1948, the work was directed by H. V. Pugh (controller of the South Wales division of the British Electricity Authority), with Wood as Chief Generation Engineer for the division. Messrs. Mouchel and Parners and Sir William Halcrow and Partners were appointed civil engineering consultants for the station proper and the river intake works respectively. Borough Architect Johnson Blackett was appointed consulting architect for the elevations. The power station began generating electricity in November 1952. It had twelve boilers requiring 3,000 tons of coal a day, and the site had a coal storage capacity of 106,000 tons - supplies for 36 days. On 18 January 1956 there was an explosion at Uskmouth 'A' causing the death of two people and mass damage to the turbine and generator; the cause of the incident was 'machine overspeed'. Uskmouth 'A' was demolished in 2002.

Uskmouth 'B' was later built in 1959 to compliment Uskmouth 'A' and to meet the demands of electricity in the area. Uskmouth 'B' still displays a good example of post-war 1950s architecture, with the station’s single stack a noteworthy feature of the site. The main buildings are brick, the use of which was phased out shortly after construction in favour of metal-clad steel structures. The station closed in 2015 pending a conversion to fire biomass; it re-opened briefly, still burning coal until an explosion caused extensive damage to the station’s switch house in April 2017. The station did not re-open following the explosion and is now being decommissioned.

References:
Lees' Loss Prevention in the Process Industries: Hazard Identification edited by Sam Mannan, 2012; Hansard written answers (Commons) 30 January 1956; 'The Uskmouth power station will be the biggest in Europe', Western Mail, 7 October 1953, p.7; Uskmouth B Power Station, Newport. Power Stations of the UK; RCAHMW AP94-CS 1425-6; RCAHMW AP945158/56-7

2. Uskmouth B power station closed in 2014, at the time it was 'Britain's oldest and least efficient coal-fired power station.' Since its closure, an application has been submitted to install 'a battery energy storage system at this established power station site. [...] The application site is only part of the much larger power station site and will be within the area of the Uskmouth B station on a former coal stockyard area'

Sources: BBC news article 'Coal-fired power station at Uskmouth to shut' published on 9 May 2014; 'Uskmouth Sustainable Energy Park' page on the SIMEC Atlantis Energy Limited website; application details submitted to Newport City Council Planning Committe, which met on 7 December 2022.

M. Ryder, RCAHMW, 16 October 2023. Updated by M. Powel, RCAHMW. December 2023.