The River Lee Scheme is made up of two separate power stations:

Carrigadrohid station

Inniscarra station

Our Lee Hydro Stations span two locations at Inniscarra and Carrigadrohid in the Lee Valley, around 14 km from Cork City. Built between 1952 and 1957, they joined the schemes of the rivers Shannon, Erne and Liffey to become our fourth major hydroelectric development. This involved creating two lakes in the Lee Valley, which:

• covers an area of 14km²; and
• have a storage capacity of 45 million cubic metres.

Overall, the stations have a combined capacity of 27 MW. Inniscarra has two generating units: one produces 15 MW and the other produces 4 MW. Both units use Voith turbine with Brown Boveri generators, which operate under an average head of 30m. Carrigadrohid has one generating unit (Voith turbine/Siemens generator) with a capacity of 8 MW, operating under an average head of 13m.

Click the images below for more information relating to the operation of the Lee Scheme.

Lee PR Pamphlet, 1970s

Carrigadrohid Power Station from book “A Heritage Inventory of ESB Buildings in Ireland”

Inniscarra Hydroelectric Station from book “A Heritage Inventory of ESB Buildings in Ireland”

 

 

Lee PR Pamphlet, 1980s