A fire in a Co Kerry power station has knocked out supply from the electricity plant for at least three weeks, placing yet more strain on the national grid at a time of concern about the adequacy of generation capacity.
The fire at the oil-fired plant at Tarbert on the Shannon Estuary resulted in the loss of 241 megawatts of generation capacity, enough to supply as many as 100,000 homes. No one was injured.
Anxiety about the risk of winter blackouts when demand peaks has already led to moves to commission emergency generation.
Market regulators have advanced plans to impose peak-time penalty tariffs on big industrial users in an attempt to curtail demand for electricity. Although the aim is to pitch prices at levels so high that large companies would have no option but to reduce their use of power on the coldest winter nights, large companies have said such interventions will damage inward investment.
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The Tarbert shutdown comes as power prices surge as a result of the escalation in the price of gas following Russia’s war on Ukraine.
“We can confirm there was a fire at Tarbert on Thursday, which was brought under control with no injuries,” said a spokesman for SSE Thermal, operator of the plant. “The unit is now undergoing assessment.”
The fire was extinguished by systems and equipment on site. The fire service was not required.
Electricity market participants have been told that the power station will not return to service until October 15th, the reason for unavailability being attributed to a boiler plant fault. The fire occurred on a component part of a boiler, it is understood.
Official market data shows the power station suffered five previous outages in the previous fortnight, three on September 8th and on September 15th and 19th.
EirGrid, operator of the national grid, said it was “monitoring the situation and working to ensure that the electricity system is optimised to secure supply during this outage”.
The Tarbert plant was previously run by the State-owned ESB, which in 2008 sold it to Spanish utility company Endesa. In 2012 Endesa Ireland sold the plant to SSE, a utility group based in Perth, Scotland.
Although the unit that shut on Thursday is one of four separate generators at Tarbert, the other three are not open.
A 243 megawatt generator, closed for long-term maintenance, is scheduled to resume operations in March. Two other 60 megawatt generators are disused, it is understood.
Constraints on the electricity network because of surging demand from economic growth and energy-hungry data centres have left the Government reliant on older fossil fuel power stations to keep the lights on.
The Tarbert plant is due to close at the end of 2023 to comply with European regulations on carbon emissions.
