County: Dublin
Fuel types: Oil; gas
Capacity: 106MW
Status: Active
Commissioned: 1949
North Wall was ESB's first thermal power plant, commissioned in 1949.
In 1982, we converted the station from an oil-fired operation to a combined cycle plant running on gas and distillate, installing two new GE frame 9E gas turbines and a waste heat recovery boiler. This provided a repowered combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) arrangement and a separate open gas cycle turbine (OCGT).
Overall, this increased North Wall’s output from 51MW to 260MW. It also became the most efficient thermal station in the fleet at the time and led the way for other station conversions to CCGT technology.
In 1997, we installed low nitrogen oxide burners to further reduce our environmental impact – the first ever successful retrofit of this kind of equipment. In 2012, we converted the CCGT arrangement to OCGT and the station now provides 106MW this way.
For more information about North Wall Generating Station, see the documents below:
North Wall Power Station from book “A Heritage Inventory of ESB Buildings in Ireland”
