Output of planned Ferbane power station to be trebled
by Karen Downey Updated: Friday, 1st April, 2011 12:00pm
Development company expects to announce work start date by end of year
The Commission for Energy Regulation (CER) has granted a bigger megawatt licence to the new power station planned for Ferbane.
Lumcloon Energy had initially been granted planning permission for a 100mw licence, but sought to increase this to 350mw and the CER granted the increased licence in February.
Spokesman for Lumcloon Energy John Gallagher confirmed this week that the CER had granted the increased licence, which he said was a major step forward for the company.
"The plan is still very much on course," he said. "That (the increased licence) was one of the big issues to be resolved. That was a major hurdle to get over."
Mr Gallagher added that the company had done some initial clearing works at the site and hoped to be able to make an announcement regarding the progress of the project before the end of the year.
Once the construction phase begins it is expected to take two years to complete the power station.
The company has previously said that the power station will create up to 500 jobs during its two year construction phase and 50 permanent positions thereafter.
The companies behind Lumcloon, R&R Mechanical based in Tullamore, and Terotech International, have previously worked on projects such as Huntstown power station in Dublin and Tynagh power station in Galway.
The area of the site where the station will be built is 4.614 hectares. The plant will operate on natural gas with distillate oil as a standby fuel, in the event of an interruption to the gas supply. Gas will be supplied to the facility from the gas network, operated by Gaslink, and electricity will be exported to the National Grid via the existing transmission lines located at the site.
The station will be capable of running in either open cycle or in combined cycle modes and is described as a flexible mid merit plant with peaking capacity.
In open cycle operation, the station will be capable of producing up to 188MW of electricity. The power generation units include four gas turbines, four heat recovery steam generators (HRSGs) and two steam turbine generators, which will be contained within one building constructed with varying roof heights determined by the components within.
Each HRSG will also be fitted with supplementary gas burners. Two air cooled condenser (ACC) units will be externally located adjacent to the power generation building. Four diverter stacks (38 metres in height) will be provided for use in open cycle operation and four HRSG stacks (49 metres in height) will be installed for use in combined cycle operation.
Other components on site include an above-ground natural gas installation (AGI), a gas receiving compound, an electrical switchyard, an administration building, a car park, a warehouse, a laboratory, workshop, control room, backup distillate storage tanks, water storage tanks, a water treatment plant, a process effluent treatment plant, a below-ground storm water attenuation tank, a proprietary treatment plant for foul effluent, pumps, coolers, pipe racks, transformers, all associated internal roads and below ground infrastructure.
