County: Offaly
Fuel type: Milled peat
Capacity: 125MW
Status: Inactive
Commissioned: 1964
Decommissioned: 2003

At the time it was built, Shannonbridge was the largest of five peat stations in Ireland. It was situated on the banks of the River Shannon, sixteen miles south of Athlone. The station used three generating units to produce electricity, each with its own boiler, turbine and generator. Units 1 and 2 were commissioned in 1965 and 1976 respectively, each with a capacity of 40MW, while a more modern unit 3 was commissioned in 1982 at a capacity of 45MW.

The plant burned milled peat from surrounding bogs, covering 13,500 acres across counties Offaly, Galway, Roscommon and Westmeath. The station burned approximately 1 million tonnes of peat annually. It produced electricity at 10.5kV, which was fed through an underground cable to a transformer to supply the national grid, through 110kV transmission lines to Ferbane, Athlone, Ennis and Cashla, and 220kV lines to Maynooth and Killonan.

Shannonbridge station was decommissioned in 2003 and demolished in 2009. It was replaced by the West Offaly Power station which opened here in 2004 and closed in 2020.

Please click on links below for information relating to the operation of Shannonbridge station.