Tarbert Power Station is an oil fired power station situated on the Shannon Estuary in
Tarbert, County Kerry
Tarbert () is a village in the north of County Kerry, with woodland to the south and the Shannon estuary to the north. It lies on the N69 coast road that runs along the estuary from Limerick before turning inland at Tarbert towards Listowel. A ...
,
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 ...
. Construction commenced in October 1966 and the first block was commissioned in 1969. The station comprises two (Unit I and II) and two oil fired steam turbines. It was the largest station of
ESB during the 1980s. The plant was sold to
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, ...
in 2009, and subsequently to
SSE in 2012. Until early 2022 it was scheduled for closure by the end of 2023. However, due to the
2021–2024 global energy crisis, Tarbert station will maintain operation for an indefinite amount of time, until enough low-carbon generating capacity will be available as a replacement.
In 2003 Tarbert was the site of an explosion that killed two workers and seriously injured another. In September 2022 one boiler was damaged by a fire, which led to loss of half of block 3's generating capacity, . The generator is expected to return to full capacity in February 2023.
In 2023 plans emerged to replace the fuel-oil fired units by a new
open cycle gas turbine
A gas turbine or gas turbine engine is a type of continuous flow internal combustion engine. The main parts common to all gas turbine engines form the power-producing part (known as the gas generator or core) and are, in the direction of flow: ...
''Next Generation Power Station'' with one
Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil (HVO)-fired unit. With planned construction begin in 2024, the new unit is scheduled for operation in 2026.
Units:
References
External links
SSE Thermal: Tarbert Power Plant
{{Authority control
Oil-fired power stations in the Republic of Ireland