The Cork-Dublin Transmission Pipeline and Gas Distribution to Kilcullen

Gas distribution network in central Kilcullen from the interactive Dial Before You Dig website. Image courtesy Gas Networks Ireland.

On 4th March last year, a press release was issued by Uisce Éireann to media and local public representatives to the effect that:

“Civil Engineers are carrying out pre-work activities on the 225mm pipeline, which involves a localised crossing over the High Transmisison (sic) Gas main under the supervision of Gas Networks.”

Available Substation Capacity in Ireland

Information on substations. Image courtesy ESB Networks.

This interesting interactive map on the ESB Networks website shows transformer capacities. A "substation" indicated on the map could be an actual town substation like the one at Sunnyhill, with 1, 2 or more transformers and associated switchgear and circuit breakers, or a transformer in a cabinet or small building (common in the newer housing estates).

Anyone Got a Good Nose?

 Image courtesy Google Maps.

The smell that was present last year, adjacent to the entrance to Kilcullen Business Campus, has returned. It might be gas or sewage, I'm not sure. It could be sewer gas released from a vent.
There's a mark on the road surface, extending from one side of the road to the other, where it was re-tarmacked after a service was laid. So that may be where the gas or sewer line runs under the road. The smell is coming from the area where this service enters the business campus, behind the timber fence to the right of the main gate.
My sense of smell has deteriorated because of COVID, so maybe someone could confirm if the can smell anything?

I'll have a look at the Gas Networks Ireland map to see where the gas line enters the site. I rang either John Craddock Ltd or Murphy Geospatial last year, can't remember which, to enquire whether there's a management company for the business campus. But I was told there isn't.

Is it council owned?

Another possibility is that there's a sump (a holding tank, that acts as a reservoir for sewage until the sewers can take it) near the entrance and this has a vent that releases sewer gas, just like a septic tank.

Extinct Infrastructure in Kilcullen

Image courtesy Google Maps.

I've always been fascinated by infrastructure and utilities such as electrical and plumbing systems. When we were in senior infants, I remember Richard Brophy, a classmate, and I lifting manhole covers in the yard of the old girls' school, which is now the parish centre. Maybe this was one of our chores to make sure the drains weren't blocked or else we were just curious. In any case, the nuns would have been hidden away in their "hut" at lunch time, unaware of what we were up to. Hosing out the toilet block in the old boys' school, which wasn't much cleaner than a cow shed, would be a weekly chore in years to come. A more pleasant job in 6th class was being sent around all the classrooms to collect the contents of the waste paper baskets and then lighting a huge bonfire against the wall of the briquette shed— all unsupervised, but great fun. I wondered as a child about the object shown in the photos above. In the early 70s, it was a green, cast-iron pipe, sticking out of the ground, possibly with a certain amount of decorative detail. In modern times, infrastructural components such as lamp posts tend to be purely functional, but in the past, they were often ornately designed — for example some of the poles that once carried Dublin's overhead tram wires have now been repurposed as lamp posts. The pipe in the photos was still extant in 2009 and covered in ivy, but disappeared when the boundary wall of CPC was rebuilt. It was presumably a sewage vent, which became unnecessary for a reason I'm unsure of. Vents like this are used in domestic plumbing systems to allow air into sewerage systems to prevent water from being siphoned out of S and P-traps and to allow wastewater to flow freely.

Slippery Manhole Covers

Image courtesy Google Street View

I don't want to be ranting on about them all the time and get a reputation as a manhole crank, but there's a really slippery one outside the heritage centre. I slipped on it on Friday when out running. I wasn't running at the time, but just stepped in off the road after stepping off the kerb to avoid some pedestrians and maybe turned too quickly on the cover. My foot went from under me on the surface and I wrenched my shoulder, throwing myself forwards to avoid falling backwards. It had to be the bad shoulder I damaged eight months ago after falling when sprinting. Anyway, I think the problem with these galvanised manhole covers (Eir ones) is that the bumps/tread pattern they put on them for grip is too rounded and shallow, unlike the square bumps on the older cast iron covers. They're probably polished from foot traffic also.

Edit: I think it's an Eir one, but maybe ESB Networks.

Pump House, County Board of Health

Last edition 6" map. Image courtesy Tailte Éireann.

This was a small hut, from what I can remember, with a slate or corrugated-iron roof, located in the council yard beside the old canoe club building (a "Barna Building"-style timber hut). There was a good view of it from the playing field of the BNS (now the library building) from where we used to throw stones and see if we could get them into the river. I presume the function of the pump was to pump water from the Ballymore Eustace water treatment works to a reservoir on raised ground at the back of Dunlea's garage, before the cavernous underground reservoir was built at Old Kilcullen.

Bad Water Quality In Kilcullen

AI image created by Grok for illustrative purposes.

Am I the only one who is experiencing corrosion of aluminium fittings because of the excessive lime in the water? Lime builds up in lumps, these act as sponges, holding water in contact with metal. Chlorine in water can make it acidic or alkaline and fluorine in the water also makes it acidic. The result is pitting damage on for example the frame members of showers.
Maybe it's time to lobby Uisce Éireann again? They say water quality is to recommended standards, but I have my doubts. It may be safe to drink, but it's obviously causing problems. Have there been any changes at the water treatment plant at Srowland, Athy to improve water quality since this article in the Kilcullen Diary in 2022?

Two Lifelines to Kilcullen

38 kV line that carries power to Kilcullen. © Eugene Brennan

Today was a busy day! First I had to scoff my dinner quickly (well half of it!) to be up at Dún Ailinne by 1:30 for the site tour. There was an open day today at which archaeologist Dr Susan Johnston of George Washington University gave us an update on what work had been done so far this summer. Dr Johnston has been investigating the neolithic and iron age ceremonial site since 2006, alongside a team of archaeology students. On the walk back, I snapped a picture of the pylon near the motorway bridge, that carries the power lines that supply electricity to Kilcullen. Those lines come from a substation adjacent to the turn for the Glen of Imaal on the N81. Electricity is transmitted at 38,000 volts or 38 kV from the Stratford substation in Wicklow, before being dropped to 10 kV for distribution by the transformers in the Kilcullen substation.

Dunlavin Water Supply Rationalisation Project: Horizontal Directional Drilling

Patchs of tarmac on road, covering locations where mains water pipe was threaded underground. © Eugene Brennan

Just did a short cycle today because rain was imminent, and I could feel the drops as I headed further south: Nicholastown, Yellowbog, Gilltown, Kennycourt, Grangebeg, Boleybeg, Alliganstown, Broadleas, Ballymore, Coghlanstown, Harristown, Carnalway and back to Kilcullen, to name but a few townlands en route.
Anyway, I noticed David Walsh Civil Engineering Ltd, the contractors for the Dunlavin Water Supply Rationalisation Project seem to be using a tunnelling technique to lay the new water main from Brannockstown to Dunlavin. This is known as horizontal directional drilling. Rather than digging trenches and covering, a tunnel is bored underground, using a coring bit. The patches of new tarmac that occur at regular intervals along the road were the access points for the drilling apparatus and where pipe sections were threaded underground. I've asked DWCE whether any construction images are available and they said that "we will post a project update on Dunlavin in due course". 

 

"3760" marked on the road appears to be the distance in metres to Brannockstown. (I measured it on Google Maps).

Edit: The company confirmed this is the technique they are using.

 

© Eugene Brennan

© Eugene Brennan

 

Dunlavin Water Upgrade:Tunnelling Work Continuing

Water main at Moorhill, south of Brannockstown © Eugene Brennan

Pipe laying seems to have been completed on the Brannockstown to Dunlavin road as part of the Dunlavin Water Supply Rationalisation Project. The project involves construction of approximately 7 km of pipeline connecting Dunlavin to a new booster pumping station at the Brannockstown Pumping Station site. According to Uisce Éireann, the new supply is to:

 "Increase security and resilience of the drinking water supply to approx. 1,000 customers in the area."
 
A tunnelling technique was used to lay the new water main and this is known as horizontal directional drilling. Rather than digging trenches and covering, tunnels were bored under the road surface, using a coring bit. The patches of new tarmac visible at regular intervals along the road before it was resurfaced were the access points for the drilling apparatus and where pipe sections were threaded underground. The railway bridge at the turn for Boleybeg on the Dunlavin road at Moorehill would have been an obstacle and I noticed while cycling by this location a couple of weeks ago that tunnelling for pipe laying is now taking place in the land in front of houses. David Walsh Civil Engineering were the contractors awarded the project by Uisce Éireann.

See also: Dunlavin Water Supply Rationalisation Project.

© Eugene Brennan

Sewerage Network in the Town Centre

Image courtesy RPSGroup and © Kildare County Council

From the Draft Kilcullen Settlement Plan. The first number on pipes I think is diameter in mm, and the code that follows is the material: uPVC is unplasticised Polyvinyl Chloride, VC is vitreous clay, CO is concrete and CL is cast iron. Sewage flows through the sewerage network to the pumping station at the back of the Kilcullen Farm & Nature Trail. From there it's pumped to the Osberstown Sewage Treatment Plant.
A clay pipe seems to be visible in the bed of the river, south of the bridge. This is probably the original sewer from the southern part of the town to the old treatment plant in the woods across the river from the farm trail. (Maybe somebody more knowledgeable could confirm this?). Or possibly it's one of the overflows shown on the map? I'm not aware of any obvious outflow pipes above the waterline.

Battery Storage for the Grid

Battery storage facility for grid. Made with Bing Image Creator.

We could do with more though to act as buffers or reservoirs of energy when the sun doesn't shine or wind doesn't blow. (Think of them as the electrical analog of the flywheel on your lawn mower engine that stores energy between the power strokes). Traditional thermal or hydro power station generation is predictable and the output can be switched into the grid as necessary. Renewable generation because of its unpredictability needs the backup of battery storage to take up the slack. More info in this ESB YouTube video.

Ardnacrusha to Dublin Transmission Line and Mystery Engine House

Image courtesy Military Archives.

Just noticed the base of one of the pylons of the 110 kV line from Ardnacrusha to Dublin in the top left of this photo of Kilcullen Bridge from the military archives (Click on the link in the image caption to open the image viewer which has a zoom facility). Ardnacrusha hydro-electric power station was commissioned in 1929, and presumably the transmission line dated from then. The line was dismantled in the 60s or maybe early 70s? When the photo was taken, power was delivered directly from Newbridge/Kildare to Kilcullen at 10 kV and there's a transformer in Nugent's field for dropping voltage from that 10 kV to around 230 V. There was no substation in the town at the time, or at least when the last edition 6" OSI map shown was drafted. The map is post-1939 as the Nicholastown housing estate has been built. The 38 kV station at Sunnyhill we have now is fed from the 110 kV substation on the N81 near Stratford-on-Slaney.

The record in the archives at the link below also has an aerial view of the bridge looking south. On desktop/laptop, right click and open the image in a new tab to view at full size. There isn't a zoom facility in the viewer.
I still haven't found out what was housed in the "Engine Ho.", located approximately where Scoil Bhríde is now. A stationary engine for pumping water from a well for the convent? Or maybe a machine for making meal for feeding animals on the convent "farm"? Or did the convent have their own electricity and this was where the engine and generator was located? Maybe someone knows.

Image courtesy Tailte Éireann (OSI)

 

Dunlavin Water Supply Rationalisation Project

If you're wondering why the R412 between Brannockstown and Dunlavin has been closed since 24th March, it's to install a new water mains to supply Dunlavin. A new booster pumping station will also be installed at the existing Brannockstown Pumping Station site. The contract for the upgrade was awarded to David Walshe Civil Engineering Ltd.

"....The new pipeline represents a €9 million investment in improving water supply security and resilience for homes and businesses in Dunlavin"

Real-Time Information From EirGrid

Screenshot from the EirGrid website.

Eirgrid's function is to match supply and demand from their control centre in Dublin. As load i.e. demand increases, generating facilities have to be switched onto the grid or increase their output to compensate, and vice versa. They also have to be synced so their voltages match and AC waveforms all start at the same point. One of the results of increasing demand is that generators slow down, and frequency drops. The opposite happens when load reduces. A change in frequency from 50 hertz can affect clocks and timing, motors and other connected equipment, so frequency is usually regulated to within fractions of a hertz (typically 0.03 hz). Anyone who has ever had an electric clock driven off the mains, will know they keep relatively good time, in comparison to a clockwork clock. That's because the speed of the shielded-pole motor used in the mechanism to turn the hands depends on frequency, not voltage.

Eirgrid's Smart Grid Dashboard shows various parameters of Ireland's electricity system, including frequency, daily supply and demand in GW, fuel mix, interconnection imports, and CO₂ emissions. Historical stats and real-time graphs of system parameters are also available on the EirGrid website. At 3 pm today, demand is 5.485 gigawatt (GW) and wind generation provides 21.8% of that. Peak demand is forecast to occur at 6.30 pm today and is expected to be 6.34 GW.

1 GW = 1000 MW (megawatt) or 1,000,000 kW. Think of 1 GW as the power used by one million, one bar electric fires.

Plumbing Tip

Gate valve. © Eugene Brennan

Identify where all your water valves are for shutting off supplies in an emergency. Tie a label on the pipe close by, or write the function on the wall behind with a thick marker. Gate valves (the one with the red knob in the photos) can and do seize, so it's a good idea to "exercise" them by turning off and back on again at least once a year. Gate valves turn off clockwise. Quadrant valves usually turn off when the lever is at right angles to the pipe. Mini inline valves can be turned off with a screwdriver and are off when the slot is at right angles to the pipe.

Quadrant or ball valve. © Eugene Brennan

Mini inline valve. © Eugene Brennan

 

Lime Scale and Tea Problems

Lime in water in Kilcullen is causing lots of hassle, for me anyway. The shower door guides are now seizing up, so I'll have to do some maintenance. It also coats surfaces, acting like a sponge, which then soaks up vinegar used for removing it, corroding chrome plating. I could plumb in a descaling filter in the attic, but then I'd have to be buying filters. Also the feed for the attic is on a different line to the kitchen tap, so that would mean another unit.

Anyone else have problems?

Have you had difficulty making proper tea since we switched over to the Barrow supply? Once upon a time, a Barry's tea bag would make nearly two cups of tea. Now it takes nearly two bags to make one cup. It's a known fact that lime in water not only makes getting a lather on soap difficult, but tea making is also difficult because of it.

Kilcullen Sewerage Infrastructure Maps

Image  © Tailte Éireann | Geological Survey Ireland & Marine Institute | Geological Survey

Some interesting maps of sewerage and water infrastructure and other information here in a site investigation report prepared on behalf of Nicholas O'Dwyer Ltd Consulting Engineers and Kildare County Council. This was in advance of the the Kilcullen Sewerage Improvement Scheme in the late 90s. The report is accessible by clicking on the red outlines on the GSI interactive map.

Maps can be accessed here.