Ireland : Turlough Hill Power Station

Turlough Hill Pumped Storage Power station is unique in the fact that it is almost completely buried into the side of a mountain. Owned and operated by ESB (Electricity Supply Board), the station sits 15 meters below the bottom of the mountain completely hidden from view and thought.

Although it's existence and approximate location is well known to locals, even with detailed instructions and a map it was difficult to find - this being no accident. The entire area is a national park and part of the limitations put down when permission was given for construction to start was that the plant and related equipment was not allowed to be obvious nor published. For the reason I will obviously not publish the location!

The plant is accessed down a long tunnel that dives into the mountain, and for those familiar with such things, it may remind you of a scaled-down entrance to a mountain facility in the USA.

As a further limitation that was imposed on ESB when construction started, alongside no road signs, markings on maps, excessive heavy traffic and nothing visable from ANY public viewpoint, was that the concrete used had to itself blend in. For this reason, dark stain was injected into the concrete for external buildings, and then rope was pushed into the walls to form 'ruts' in the walls in order to make the buildings blend in with the surrounding mountains. See the picture below titled 'External Wall Texture'

The station controls all of Irelands hydro-electric stations (10 in total). In December 1973 the stations first generator came online and in the summer of 1974 the station was fully operational with its four 500RPM 73MW generators. With 2.3 million m3 of water in it's upper reservoir, that's a lot of power! During times of low demand, the water is pumped from the lower reservoir to the upper, ready to be used when required, and with one generator 'Spinning in Air' ready to fly into action as soon as it's required, Turlough Hill is capable of boosting the power on the grid as required.

In the centre of the station there is a cavern that is as large as a medium sized cathedral, and when it was built it was the largest civil-engineering project ever undertaken in Ireland.

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Generator Control Board Operating Floor
 
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Generator Shaft Valve
 
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Switchgear Fire Suppression Equip.
 
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Backup Generator Turbine Enclosure
 
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Valve (Closed) New Turbine Enclosure
 
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Generator Moderator New Compressor being installed
 
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Flap Valve New Compressor
 
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Old Compressor In-House Workshop
 
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Switching Gear Control Room
 
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Control Room Control Room
 
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Looking Down on Op. Floor Emergency Escape Tunnel
 
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1 of 4 Generator tops Entrance Tunnel
 
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Entrance Tunnel Exterior Wall Texture
 
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Yard Main Entance
 
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Main Entrance
 
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(Click To Enlarge) Panoramic of 'Yard'
 
   

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