Emergency electricity plant approved for Dublin Port site

An Bord Pleanála has approved Government plans for a 210 megawatt temporary emergency electricity generating plant at the existing North Wall power generating station in Dublin.

The emergency plant will comprise six 35 megawatt gas turbine units of modular design to be installed at the existing generating station on the southern side of Alexandra Road within Dublin Port.

The Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, Eamon Ryan lodged the plans for the facility on June 28th under emergency provisions contained in the Planning and Development Act. A decision was expected to be made by the appeals board on December 1st.

However, against the background of growing fears over the State’s energy supply, An Bord Pleanála fast-tracked the planning application and has now granted approval.

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The ESB will install the temporary emergency generators. In an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) lodged with the planning application, it warned that “if the proposed development does not proceed, it is possible that power outages could occur ... unless emergency generation is provided at some other location due to the forecasted system demand.”

The EIA stated that “this would have a significant adverse effect in terms of energy requirements and supply at home, at work, for commercial developments and industry”.

The EIA also noted that the temporary emergency generating plant will be in place for up to five years from early 2023 and will operate for up to 500 hours annually on natural gas only, typically four hours per day when needed.

The planning documents state that the emergency power plant is designed to start quickly and will run when electricity demand is high and generation capacity from other sources available on the system is at risk of not meeting demand.

The appeals board’s inspector’s report in the case observed that the proposed works including site preparation and construction would take about 15 months to complete, and it is anticipated that the system would be up and running by mid to late 2023.

However, the time frames can now be brought forward because approval has been granted earlier than anticipated.

The application was made in response to Eirgrid seeking candidates to provide up to 200MW of emergency generation to the transmission network by a target date of the third quarter of 2022.

Eirgrid sought out candidates after the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (CRU) identified a substantial risk to security of electricity supply.