The history of the Tejo Power Station, operating from 1908 to 1975 in the Belém district of Lisbon, Portugal.
Introduction As the latter 19th century advanced, Lisbon's rate of urbanisation and electricity consumption was outgrowing existing power generation stations. The two power stations that supplied the city with electricity were the Avenida Power Station (1889) and the Boavista Power Station (1903). Their names were intimately connected to their locations. It was for this same reason that during the Tejo Power Station's initial stages, toponymy remained in use and it was originally named the Junqueira Power Station, being located in the Junqueira district. Despite everything, this name didn't last long since, once construction was concluded, official documents and the plant's facade took on the name of the Tagus River (Rio Tejo) it was built on, as the Tejo Power Station.
The original Tejo Power Station The small power plants that existed in the capital (Avenida and Boavista Power Stations) became obsolete due to the increasing demand for electric power. Furthermore, they were located in heavily urbanised neighbourhoods, thereby exerting a strong environmental impact on the residents and presenting a lack of space for the more than predictable expansions that the new electricity industry was going to require. For these reasons, at the beginning of 1908, the company that held the concession to produce and distribute electric power in Lisbon, the Companhias Reunidas de Gás e Electricidade (CRGE - United Gas and Electric Companies) undertook construction of a new thermoelectric power station in Lisbon. In the operating license, they asked for permission to install a "new power generating station", located in a manufacturing district that went from the Navy Dockyard to Pedrouços beach, in the western part of the city. The chosen location was situated halfway between the Belém Palace and the Junqueira National Rope Factory, which still exist today. Thus, after raising the capital to finance the new thermoelectric power station, in March 1908 construction began on the plant that would provide Lisbon and the surrounding area with electricity for more than six decades. The final technical project was created by engineer Lucien Neu, who made the most of all the usable space by placing the turbines in the central area and the boilers on either side. This project underwent several alterations, with the construction work extending for longer than had initially been programmed. The company responsible for constructing the buildings was Vieillard & Touzet, who maintained approximately 50 workers on the site. In the summer of 1909, the Tejo Power Station was officially inaugurated despite undergoing important alterations in its interior until 1910, such as the acquisition of new turbo-alternators or the expansion of the boiler room, which involved building a new 36 meter-high chimney in the shape of an inverted pyramidal stem. From its construction up to 1912, the Junqueira Power Station acquired new machinery to increase its production. In 1908 it started off with two alternators from the Boavista Power Station, each with a 1 MW output, and six Delaunay – Belleville boilers. The 1910 expansion involved the installation of three new Brown Boveri & Cª. turbo-alternators that raised the total output to 7.75 MW, as well as four boilers at a first stage, later joined by five more boilers with greater vaporisation capacity. Thus, in 1912, when all this equipment was in place, the original Tejo Power Station had fifteen small Belleville boilers and five generating sets that supplied the city of Lisbon's electric grid. Regarding the exterior, the building that accommodated this extensive set of machinery displayed an architectural style typical of the small power stations at the end of the 19th century, the then called "electricity factories". Its plan was of a longitudinal nave covered on two sides, and three transversally adjacent pavilions on the western side. Between them, two slim chimneys doubled the height of the plant's body and "overlooked" the area. The north–south facades displayed the inscription 1909 / Cªs Reunidas Gás e Electricidade / Estação Eléctrica Central Tejo (United Gas and Electric Companies / Tejo Electric Power Station). This original Tejo Power Station was planned to operate for six years (1908–1914) until the CRGE managed the necessary means to build a larger plant with greater capacity. However, due to the outbreak of World War I in that final year, the Tejo Power Station's original phase was extended and remained operational until 1921. The production and distribution of electricity began to take place under very precarious conditions since, among other aspects, the fuels used were of poor quality, and as a consequence the boilers suffered constant breakdowns, which led to a significant reduction in the rate of expansion and development of electricity in the city. Despite these setbacks, construction work on the low pressure boiler building continued, and at the end of 1916 the plant started receiving steam from the first two low pressure boilers installed in the new building that was still under construction but nonetheless guaranteed the necessary conditions to reinforce the supply to the existing generating sets. In 1921, once the Low Pressure building was constructed and made fully operational, the original Tejo Power Station was deactivated and dismantled, with a set of workshops and warehouses taking its place. Some years later, in 1938, the need to build a new High Pressure boiler building led to the demolition of the naves from the station's original phase, leaving no trace behind.
The current Tejo Power Station The need to build a new power station to satisfy the growing demand for electricity, and the precarious conditions under which the original Tejo Power Station was operating, led in 1914 to the construction of new buildings and the installation of more efficient machinery. This was a time of growth and modernisation that only ended with the installation of the 15th and final boiler in 1951. Generally speaking, there were two main construction periods:
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
