Tejo Power Station (history)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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".

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.

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.

The project included several manufacturing bodies: two longitudinal naves covered on both sides, each one to accommodate six Babcock & Wilcox low pressure boilers; one machinery room with a capacity for two German AEG 8MW turbo-alternators; as well as a smaller control and substation building.

Construction began from north to south and east to west, and aside from the above, the possibility of later expanding on the southern side to the edge of the Tagus river was also immediately plotted.

Shortly after beginning the construction work, World War I broke out, causing delays in established deadlines and problems receiving the two turbo-alternators ordered from Germany, which remained detained until the end of the conflict.

Nonetheless, in 1916 the first two low pressure boilers were installed (which in the project were assigned numbers 5 and 6) in order to supply the generators from the original power station.

With the permanent installation of these 6 boilers and three generating sets, production stabilised and it was possible to dismantle the outdated equipment from the Junqueira Power Station.

Gradually, due to the increase in consumption, it was once again necessary to carry out new and important work on the power station in order to expand and complete the low pressure boiler room.

The program created by the CRGE consisted in expanding one industrial nave that would accommodate three new low pressure boilers and purchasing one new generating set.

After approximately fifteen years undergoing construction and expansion, in its Low Pressure phase, the Tejo Power Station finally had three large manufacturing areas: boilers, machinery and substation, located parallel to the river.

From the beginning of that decade, AEG turbo-alternators 2 and 3 began to cause problems and break down constantly, and in 1934 a request was issued to purchase and license the installation of two generators of the same brand but with double the capacity.

On the other hand, making the turbines in sets 2 and 3 compatible with a high pressure process was complicated, since the order placed with the German manufacturer encountered the commercial blockade that spread all over the European continent as a consequence of World War II.

Later, and due to the increase in electricity consumption, that project evolved into an expansion plan to create a new production centre, in other words, a new thermoelectric power station.

From that moment on, the Tejo Power Station became a reserve plant, limiting its operation to years of drought or complicated water situations, and as a support system for the national electric grid.

After nationalising the Portuguese electricity sector in 1975, the CRGE's assets were integrated into the new company established in 1976, EDP – Electricidade de Portugal, and the question arose regarding what to do with the old Tejo Power Station, where there was still a large amount of machinery tied to the impressive structure.

The Museum also has a Documentation Centre, a specialised library and a research and conservation service pertaining to a great variety of electricity-related equipment, thus consolidating the historic study of electricity in Portugal and perpetuating its memories and facts.

Its facades and interiors were cleaned, its iron structure reinforced, thousands of bricks were replaced and the museographic content was altered, as is visible today and can be confirmed by visiting the space, the old Tejo Power Station, now an Electricity Museum.