Turlough Hill
Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Use Hiberno-English Template:Infobox mountain Turlough Hill (Template:Irish place name),<ref name="Logainm">Template:Cite web</ref> also known as Tomaneena (Template:Irish place name),<ref name="MountainViews">Template:Cite web</ref> is a Template:Convert mountain in County Wicklow in Ireland and site of Ireland's only pumped-storage hydroelectricity plant. The power station is owned and operated by the ESB and can generate up to Template:Convert of electricity at times of peak demand.
The mountain
The historian Liam Price recorded that the mountain was known locally as Tomaneena;Template:Sfn Turlough Hill is the name given to it by the ESB when they surveyed the site for the pumped-storage scheme.<ref name="Munro">Template:Cite news</ref> It is Template:Convert high and is the 136th highest summit in Ireland.<ref name="MountainViews" /> The summit is located to the south-west of the upper reservoir and is easily reached via the tarmac access road that begins at the top of the Wicklow Gap.Template:Sfn It is also possible to reach the summit from Glendalough or from the summits of neighbouring Camaderry and Conavalla mountains.Template:Sfn
The underlying geology of the mountain is granite, covered with blanket bog, which is a habitat for heather, purple moor grass and Template:Lang moss.<ref name="Kelly">Template:Cite news</ref> A number of alpine plants grow near the summit: dwarf willow, cowberry, crowberry, fir clubmoss and common bilberry.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> To the north-east of the summit, at the head of Glendasan valley, is Lough Nahanagan (Template:Irish place name),<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> a corrie lake carved by a glacier at the end of the last ice age.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Template:Clear
The pumped-storage scheme
Template:Main The Turlough Hill Power Station is owned and operated by the Electricity Supply Board (ESB).<ref name="ESB_Turlough">Template:Cite web</ref> Construction commenced in 1968, and the station became fully operational in 1974.
Name
Whilst the original name is Tomaneena, renaming it ‘Turlough Hill’ has a certain validity. The pumped storage station draws water from the mountain top lake, which thus becomes a ‘dry lake’. There is a geological feature known as a Turlough; it is defined as "(in Ireland) a low-lying area on limestone which becomes flooded in wet weather through the welling up of groundwater from the rock. Origin late 17th cent.: from Irish turloch, from tur ‘dry’ + loch ‘lake’."<ref>quoted directly from Apple Computer’s Oxford Dictionary of English 3rd edition, 2010. See also Whittow, John (1984) The Penguin Dictionary of Physical Geography, p.556.</ref> Template:Clear