County: Dublin
Fuel type: Coal; oil
Capacity: 270MW
Status: Inactive
Commissioned: 1955
Decommissioned: 1988

 
When it was built in 1955, Ringsend station was the largest in the Irish Electricity network. It was developed in two stages, Ringsend “A” of 90,000 kW capacity, commissioned in 1955-56 and Ringsend “B” of 180,000 kW capacity, commissioned in 1965-56:

• RINGSEND A comprised four Babcock and Willcox 200,000 lb./hr. boilers delivering steam at 625 p.s.i.g. 865/F to a receiver for distribution to three Parsons 30 mW turbo-generators. The boilers were specially designed for running on either pulverised coal or fuel oil, depending on the current world fuel prices.
• RINGSEND B comprised three units, each having a VKW boiler delivering 550,000 lbs./hr. of steam at 1,175 p.s.i.g. 960°F to a 60,000 kW turbine. Two of the turbines were Siemens impulse reaction type and the third machine is a Parsons impulse reaction turbine. Fuel oil was fed to 9 pressure atomising burners at 600 p.s.i. 250°F. These boilers were designed to operate on fuel oil only.

At its peak, its coal and oil storages were 30,000 tons and 82,000 tons respectively, giving 10-15 weeks capacity at normal demand. Coal supplies were shipped in from England but Irish coal from Arigna and Castlecomer were used to a significant extent.Fuel oil supplies came from various sources, such as the Middle East, Whitegate Oil Refinery and Libya. The tankers berthed at the wharf at the station and pumped directly into the storage tanks.

The total maximum electrical output capacity was 2,268 million units per annum or 6.48 million units per day, corresponding to a fuel consumption of 567,000 tons of fuel oil. The generator output was at 10,500 volts and this was stepped up to 38,000 volts and 110,000 volts in transformers at the station and fed to the main transmission system.

Ringsend station was retired in 1988 and eventually demolished in 2007.

Click the images below for more information relating to the operation of Ringsend station.