ESB offers free tours of Turlough Hill hydro station

Turlough Hill power plant will celebrate it's 40th birthday this year and is inviting guests to come and take a look. Video: Darragh Bambrick

The ESB has opened its Turlough Hill generating station to mark the 40th anniversary of its opening

The ESB has opened its Turlough Hill generating station to the public and is offering free tours throughout the summer to mark the 40th anniversary of the States first and only hydro- electric storage station.

Set high in the Wicklow mountains and almost invisible to prying eyes the station which can generate up to 292 MW of electricity in 70 seconds is located 500 metres inside the hill itself.

Some 300 metres above the turbines is the upper reservoir on the top of Turlough Hill, its flat top the only sign from the nearest public road of man made intrusion in the landscape. It is approached by a small winding road over rocky outcrops known as the Wicklow Gap, seeming populated only by sheep.

However, 300 metres off the road, like a scene from a James Bond film, the tunnel appears with workers going in and out of the mountain in small golf buggy-like vehicles.

The station operates all year round but comes into its own typically at about 5pm on a wet February evening when household cookers across the country are switched on, lights come on and home heating fires up. Turlough Hill can deliver its 292 MW of electricity to the national grid, ramping up to full power in just 70 seconds ensuring the States lights dont even flicker.

Turlough Hill can stay at full power for about five hours. It does this by opening sluice gates allowing up to 2.3 billion litres of water drop through the pipework inside the mountain hitting the turbines at a depth of 300 metres. The water then exits into a lower lake, originally a corrie, a geographical feature which ensures the facility remains almost invisible in the landscape.

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ESB offers free tours of Turlough Hill hydro station