Alternate name: Bellacorrick
County: Mayo
Fuel type: Milled peat
Capacity: 40MW
Status: Inactive
Commissioned: 1962
Decommissioned: 2005
Located about twenty miles west of Ballina in Northwest Mayo, Bellacorick station burned locally supplied milled peat. Bord na Mona started work on the development of the bogland around Bellacorick in 1951. The bog had to be drained so as to allow heavy machinery to operate on it. The initial construction of the power station got underway in 1958. Erskine Childers, Minister for Transport & Power and later to become the third President of Ireland officially opened the plant in May 1963.
Aerial view of station foundations, c1958
At its peak in the 1980s and 1990s, the station burned an average of 1,000 tonnes of peat during a normal day, with around 350,000 tonnes burned annually. The plant comprised two 20 MW turbo alternators which were driven by steam from two boilers capable of producing 210,000 pounds of steam per hour.
Each unit consists of a boiler and a turbine/generator. Each turbines drove the generators to produce electricity at 10 kV, which was fed through an underground cable to a transformer where it was stepped up to 110 kV for transmission to the National Grid.
Bellacorick station was decommissioned in 2003 and demolished in 2007. For more information about Bellacorick Generating Station, see the documents below:
Bellacorick PR Pamphlet, 1970s
Bellacorick PR Pamphlet, 1970s
Bellacorick Power Station from book “A Heritage Inventory of ESB Buildings in Ireland”
