Turlough Hill
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Turlough Hill is Ireland's only pumped-storage hydroelectricity plant, it is located in the mountains of County Wicklow off the R756 road at the Wicklow Gap. The plant was built between 1968 and 1974, for the Electricity Supply Board (ESB) by a German contractor. The project cost approximately IR£ 20 million (approximately US$ 50 million) at the time. At the time ESB started the project it also investigated a nuclear power option, this latter activity would later result in the Nuclear Energy Board. For many years groups could visit the site of Turlough Hill and the plant. However, this was discontinued because of operational and security concerns. The project was considered a major civil engineering and environmental feat in Ireland.
Turlough Hill has four units called Motor/Generator's fitted. When operating as electrical generators they can generate 292 megawatts and when operating as motors or pumps they use 272MW's. Like other similar systems, it has a reservoir. In this case, the reservoir is at the top of a hill, which is released when required to produce electricity and filled when an overcapacity of electricity is available. When the order is given, electricity can be made available within approximately a minute of startup. This is fast when compared with conventional sources such as coal, gas and oil which can take hours or days because of the requirement to heat all machinery to the steam temperature.
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Below the 300ft walls of the North Face of Sliabh Céim an Doire/Camaderry Mountain in Wicklow is the glacial corrie, Loch na h-Onchon, in a deep hollow between the foreground and background of the picture (bottom right). On the top of the mountain on which Turlough Hill/Cnoc Tur-Loch is built there is an artificial reservoir (top right); the water from the corrie is pumped up to the reservoir and when electricity demand is high it is let fall through the inside of the mountain driving hydroelectric turbines. The electricity is linked to the grid through underground cables.
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