€500m power station ‘boost for Kerry jobs’

A €500 MILLION gas-fired power station would have huge economic benefits for the jobs-starved north Kerry area, an oral planning hearing was told in Listowel yesterday.

Spanish energy giant Endesa, which employs 27,000 people and is the leading private electricity company in Latin America, has applied for planning permission to build a 450MW plant at Tarbert, on the Shannon Estuary.

Upwards of 500 construction workers would be employed during a four-year period and 38 highly skilled jobs would be created when the plant came into operation, project manager Maurice Kelly said.

It would be located on the site of the old ESB electricity generating station, in Tarbert, which Endesa purchased two years ago.

Mr Kelly said the development would be in two phases, with phase one due to be in commercial operation by 2012 and phase two operating commercially by 2016.

The existing, oil-fired power plant, built in the late 1960s, is to be demolished.

He said the new technology would result in a more efficient generation ofelectricity.

It would also be more environmentally friendly, more reliable and would result in lower electricity prices, he said.

As the project is a “strategic infrastructure development”, Endesa is applying directly to An Bord Pleanála for planning permission and a decision on the application is due on June 29 next.

Endesa has assembled a high-powered team of up to a dozen experts in engineering, scientific and environmental fields for the hearing.

In an opening submission for Endesa, barrister Rory Mulcahy said the use of the ESB site had significant advantages over a green field site as it enabled existing infrastructure such as cooling water intake, a water reservoir, sewage treatment plant and administration building to be used.

Crucially, it also gave access to the transmission network servicing the plant, he pointed out.

Mr Mulcahy also said a flood risk assessment found the site to be at risk at the 200 and 1,000-year predicted flood levels.

For that reason, Endesa had developed a flood defence strategy involving the construction of flood defence walls.

He further stated that from information in an environmental impact statement and the history of the site, there was no reason to refuse planning permission on environmental grounds.

Donal McRandal, a mechanical engineer with almost 30 years’ experience in power station development, said natural gas, supplied from the Bord Gáis network, would be the normal fuel source, with distillate fuel oil as an emergency back-up fuel.

He also said that, because less fuel would be used, the emission of greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide, would be reduced.

Senior officials of Kerry County Council and members of Tarbert Development Association, both of which support the application, are in attendance. Members of An Taisce are present as observers while the Safety Before LNG (liquid natural gas) group, which is opposed to the application, is also represented.