A TENDERING procedure will be put in train immediately for the £10 million refurbishment of a 30 megawatt peat fuelled unit in the Ferbane generating station, near Edenderry, Co Offaly, it was announced yesterday.

Without the refurbishment the unit, which was built in 1964, would have been due to close shortly, along with the other three units in the station.

It will now remain in operation until 2013, said the Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications, Mr Dukes, who visited the station yesterday.

Mr Dukes said the use of peat to generate electricity was all the more important now that supplies of the other indigenous fuel available, natural gas, were running out.