Viridian, the electricity provider in Northern Ireland, discharged another salvo in its war of words against the ESB yesterday, by contending that the State body has acted anti-competitively in awarding a connection offer from the national grid to its power station project in Ringsend, Dublin.
The claim, which is based on the premise that ESB acted outside its remit by entering in a financial bond on the connection offer, was denied by the ESB, which stated the accusation was malicious and self-serving.
The accusation follows a claim made by Viridian last week, also denied, that cabling work at Ringsend was proceeding without authorisation. Viridian has plans, with the building materials company, CRH, to enter the State's partially deregulated electricity market by building a power station in Huntstown, Dublin.
ESB National Grid, a subsidiary of the ESB which provides the connection from power stations to the national transmission system, has now informed Viridian that it awarded a connection offer to "a third party" - the ESB/Statoil joint venture company behind Ringsend - and that "therefore there will be an unavoidable delay in issuing a connection offer to you". Mr David de Casseres, Viridian's commercial director and the project director behind Huntstown, said that by entering a bond, which guarantees a minimum payment to ESB National Grid, ESB/Statoil made a financial commitment which would require ministerial approval although no funding approval has yet been given.
But an ESB spokesman said the claim was the latest in a series of "unfounded" accusations by Viridian. "This bond does not have financial implications connected to capital expenditure in any way," he said. He said Viridian needs to concentrate on building its own plant rather than trying to prevent ESB from any development. "The challenge to everybody is to compete, not to limit the competitiveness of others by putting limits on their projects. It would seem that Viridian are not meeting that challenge at the moment, because their statements are anti-competitive."
