Lyle:
The town is Cobh, Co. Cork... a few miles outside Cork City. It was the last port of call for the Titanic [Linked Image]

Lyle & Paul:

110kV formed the backbone of the ESB grid in The Republic of Ireland (or what was the Irish Freestate before 1932) since about 1927. (220kV and 400kV are also used thesedays)

I suspect that in 1927 there was no particular UK standard established so it might have made a lot of sence for NIE to have settled on 110kV for various reasons. Economies of scale .. xformers etc and simple interconnection possibilities across the boarder.

The choice of 110kV in the ESB system is quite likely to have been influenced either by Siemens, AEG or ASEA (now ABB). Do 110kV systems exsist elsewhere?

I also suspect that in the early days that there may have been cross-boarder interconnections at 110kV.. there is certainly one connection at that voltage between Letterkenny (Co. Donegal Rep. of Ireland) and Strabane (Co. Tyrone Northern Ireland)

Remember that Northern Ireland's grid wasn't connected to the UK until recently and even today the only interconnector is high voltage DC.. so it has no direct AC link so it didn't really have to observe British transmission voltage norms. The lines are also relatively short and the power stations relatively small compared to the UK so huge high tension lines wern't an issue as it's only serving a small and relatively low density population.

ESB and Northern Ireland Electricty were always extremely practical companies who did whatever was the most sensible thing to do from a technical stand point completely ignoring politics etc etc.. I would also have to say, having had experience of dealing with both companies, they both have long and outstanding track records.

[This message has been edited by djk (edited 01-09-2004).]