Ardnacrusha
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Ardnacrusha (Árd na Croise in Irish), originally The Shannon Scheme, is Ireland's largest river hydroelectric scheme and is operated on the River Shannon near Limerick City. The plant includes fish ladders so that returning salmon etc. can climb the river safely past the power station.
The generating plant at Ardnacrusha is composed of three vertical-shaft Francis turbo-generators (installed in 1929) and one vertical -shaft Kaplan turbo-generator (installed in 1934) operating under an average head of 28.5 meters. The 85 MW of generating plant in Ardnacrusha was adequate to meet the electricity demand of the entire country in the early years. The full output equates to about 332 thousand MW generated on an annual basis. Ardnacrusha generates at 10.5 kilovolts (kV) but this is transformed to 40 kV for local distribution and to 110 kV for long distance transmission.
Ardnacrusha was built under the leadership of the German firm Siemens-Schuckertwerke during the mid-1920s and was a major project undertaken by the then new Irish Free State. In 1925 the works commenced after the passing of the Shannon Electricity Act, 1925, by 1927 the project was at an advanced state, and by this time the Electricity Supply Board was established and took control of the scheme and electricity supply and generation generally. At the time, it was the largest hydroelectric station in the world, though this was soon superseded by a much larger station in Russia. Most of the skilled workers and engineers on the power station were Germans. The camp set up for the workers included living quarters for 750 men and a dining room that seated 600.
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