Power station closure would mean blackouts on both sides of Border

THERE will be electricity blackouts on both sides of the Border if there is another major breakdown in Northern Ireland’s power stations, it was warned yesterday.

The new Coolkeeragh generating plant in Derry, run by the ESB, is out of action after running into problems, and the North cannot afford another station to go off line.

Northern Ireland Electricity spokesman Robin Greer said things were "very tight" with little or no spare generating capacity.

"While Coolkeeragh is not running we have to meet the shortfall elsewhere. If there was another major breakdown like that at Ballylumford in December 2003 there would be problems.

"There would need to be load shedding blackouts in rotation North and South."

The £262 million (€381.6m), 400MW, gas powered Coolkeeragh plant went on stream in July last year claiming to be the most efficient power station on the island of Ireland.

Around 250MW of output goes to Northern Ireland and 150MW to the Republic, where demand for electricity has been growing at a phenomenal rate, some 10 times faster than elsewhere in Europe.

But there have been a number of problems and on December 16 the plant was forced to close down.

ESB spokesman Kevin MacDermott said: "It is a steam turbine problem which engineers from the manufacturer and our own engineers have been working on since."

A part was required "which we expect to have in place by mid-January," he added.

He rejected rumours that ESB had been hit by the spiralling international cost of gas and could not afford to re-open the plant.

"This is a genuine technical fault. We are not trying to pull a fast one."