Rhode Power Station is a 104 MW gas/oil fired

peaker plant Peaking power plants, also known as peaker plants, and occasionally just "peakers", are power plants that generally run only when there is a high demand, known as peak demand, for electricity. Because they supply power only occasionally, the powe ...

situated beside the village of Rhode in

County Offaly County Offaly (; ) is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is part of the Eastern and Midland Region and the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster. It is named after the Ancient Ireland, ancient Kingdom of Uí ...

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

. It replaced an 80 MW

peat Peat is an accumulation of partially Decomposition, decayed vegetation or organic matter. It is unique to natural areas called peatlands, bogs, mires, Moorland, moors, or muskegs. ''Sphagnum'' moss, also called peat moss, is one of the most ...

fueled power station operated by ESB that was decommissioned in 2003.

Current operations

The current power station commenced commercial operation in 2004 and is currently operated by

SSE Thermal SSE Thermal is the Power Generation, thermal power generation subsidiary of British company SSE plc. Overview SSE Thermal operates several thermal power stations across the United Kingdom and Ireland that provide electricity to the National ...

. SSE acquired the plant from

Endesa Endesa, S.A. (, originally an initialism for ''Empresa Nacional de Electricidad, S.A''.) is a Spanish multinational electric utility company, the largest in the country. The firm, a majority-owned subsidiary of the Italian utility company Enel, ...

along with three other operational assets (

Tarbert Tarbert () is a place name in Scotland and Ireland. Places named Tarbert are characterised by a narrow strip of land, or isthmus. This can be where two lochs nearly meet, or a causeway out to an island. Etymology All placenames that variously s ...

Great Island Great Island () is an island in Cork Harbour, at the mouth of the River Lee and close to the city of Cork, Ireland. The largest town on the island is Cobh (called Queenstown from 1849 to 1920). The island's economic and social history has hist ...

and Tawnaghmore) when they agreed to buy shares of Endesa Ireland for a total consideration of €320m. The plant comprises two 52 MW

gas Gas is a state of matter that has neither a fixed volume nor a fixed shape and is a compressible fluid. A ''pure gas'' is made up of individual atoms (e.g. a noble gas like neon) or molecules of either a single type of atom ( elements such as ...

oil An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) and lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturate ...

-fired open cycle unit turbines. Its principal function is to help maintain the security of electricity supply in Ireland's all-island Single Electricity Market (SEM) by being available to operate on quick response to peaks in national energy demand.

Rhode Generating Station (ESB)

Rhode Generating Station was situated in the

midlands The Midlands is the central region of England, to the south of Northern England, to the north of southern England, to the east of Wales, and to the west of the North Sea. The Midlands comprises the ceremonial counties of Derbyshire, Herefor ...

, about eighteen miles outside of

Tullamore Tullamore (; ) is the county town of County Offaly in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is on the Grand Canal (Ireland), Grand Canal, in the middle of the county, and is the fourth most populous town in the Midland Region, Ireland, Midlands Reg ...

. It was constructed as part of the Peat Development Programme in the 1960s, and was considered to be the most efficient of Ireland's five peat generating stations. Construction work at Rhode station began in 1958, at a time when the

Government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a State (polity), state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive (government), execu ...

placed a strong emphasis on the development of the country's native resources. At the same time, demands for industry were beginning to grow as the country finally began to emerge from a lengthy and crippling economic slowdown. As a result of the Rural Electrification Scheme, many parts of Ireland were beginning to benefit from easier access to

electricity Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter possessing an electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described by Maxwel ...

. Rhode was a part of a new generation of

power station A power station, also referred to as a power plant and sometimes generating station or generating plant, is an industrial facility for the electricity generation, generation of electric power. Power stations are generally connected to an electr ...

s, using milled peat as opposed to sod peat, The station was built on a 70-acre site, chosen for its proximity to both a large supply of peat, and a good source of water from the Yellow River. The station was complete in two separate developments: '''A''' station in 1960 and B''' station in 1963. The first station consisted of two 190,000 pounds of steam per hour boilers, driving two 20 MW turbo-alternator units and the second station consisted of a single boiler with an output of 380,000 pounds of steam per hour and a 40 MW turbo-alternator. Milled peat was supplied by

Bord na Móna Bord na Móna (; English: "The Peat Board") is a semi-state company in Ireland, created in 1946 by the Turf Development Act 1946. The company began developing the peatlands of Ireland with the aim to provide economic benefit for Irish Midland co ...

from local production, and transported to the station by

narrow-gauge railway A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge (distance between the rails) narrower than . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with tighter cur ...

s. Wagons, each containing 5 tonnes, were emptied automatically by the tippler and the peat was then transported by

conveyor belt A conveyor belt is the carrying medium of a belt conveyor system (often shortened to a belt conveyor). A belt conveyor system consists of two or more pulleys (sometimes referred to as drums), with a closed loop of carrying medium—the conveyor b ...

to the bunkers at a rate of 2,000 tonnes per day. At its peak in the 1980s and 1990s, the station burned 450,000 tonnes of peat annually, to generate 300 million

kilowatt-hour A kilowatt-hour ( unit symbol: kW⋅h or kW h; commonly written as kWh) is a non-SI unit of energy equal to 3.6 megajoules (MJ) in SI units, which is the energy delivered by one kilowatt of power for one hour. Kilowatt-hours are a comm ...

s of electricity. Rhode Generating Station was decommissioned in 2003 and demolished in 2004.

References

External links

ESB Archives: Rhode Generating StationSSE Thermal: Rhode Power Station
{{Authority control Natural gas-fired power stations in the Republic of Ireland