The Viridian Group has announced that following recent results of the first transitional auction for capacity in the new Integrated Single Electricity Market ('I-SEM'), the Huntstown plants will not be able to recover their costs from May 23, 2018, and staff at the facility have been put on protective notice for an initial period of eight weeks.
Huntstown 1 awarded contract, but not Huntstown 2
EirGrid and
SONI, the joint system operators of the electricity market in Ireland, announced the outcome of the first transitional auction for capacity in the new Integrated Single Electricity Market (I-SEM) on Friday last (26 January).
The auction has resulted in Huntstown 1 being awarded a reliability option contract but Huntstown 2 has not been awarded such a contract. As the new I-SEM market will not allow the Huntstown plants to recover their costs from May 23, 2018, Viridian has placed relevant Huntstown staff on protective notice of redundancy for an initial period of eight weeks.
Plants critical to security of electricity supply
Viridian said it continues to believe the Huntstown plants are critical to the security of electricity supply in the Dublin area and that it has had a number of constructive interactions with the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment and the
Commission for Regulation of Utilities (CRU); and that it has commenced discussions with EirGrid. However, meaningful substantive engagement will be required to find a timely solution for the Huntstown plants. it said.
The CRU has issued an information paper that contemplates putting in place transmission reserve contracts to meet local security of supply issues and Viridian said it remains firmly committed to playing its part in urgently progressing discussions to resolve this issue.
The Huntstown Power Plant is Viridian Group’s 747MW gas-fired power station in north Dublin. It is capable of powering 1.5 million homes or 20 per cent of Ireland’s electricity needs. Viridian has invested more than €1 billion in Irish energy generation infrastructure since 2000.