About ESB
Our history, our people and our principles
Aghada
- Location: Whitegate, County Cork
- Technology: Natural Gas and Distillate
- Capacity: 963MW
- Commissioned: 1980 & 2010
Aghada Generating Station is located close to the entrance of Cork Harbour. Today the plant comprises two stations; the first 528MW was commissioned in 1980 with the second 435MW added in 2010.
The initial site comprised two areas which were divided by the main Midleton/Whitegate road and linked by a bridge. The in-filled site, where Unit 1 stands, was enlarged by excavating over half a million cubic meters of material from the hillside opposite, creating an arena in which the three combustion turbines (CT11, CT12, CT14) were situated.
Unit 1 is a gas-fired conventional steam turbine plant of 258MW capacity. CT11, CT12 and CT14 are three open cycle gas turbines which are gas or distillate fired, each with a capacity of approximately 90MW.
In April 2010, the capacity of the station was increased from 528MW to 963MW when a new state-of-the-art 435MW Combined Cycle Gas Turbine entered commercial operation. The gas-fired plant is one of the most efficient and cleanest plants in Europe and generates enough electricity to supply approximately 8% of power demand in the Single Electricity Market. Aghada Generating Station is also the only power station which serves all three market segments of baseload, mid-merit and peaking demand.
The new plant, which was constructed over a 30 month period at a cost of €360m, entered commercial operations in 2010.
