Moneypoint power station () is

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

's largest electricity generation station (output 915 MW) and only coal-fired power station. Commissioned between 1985 and 1987, it is located on the River Shannon near Kilrush,

County Clare County Clare ( ga, Contae an Chláir) is a county in Ireland, in the Southern Region and the province of Munster, bordered on the west by the Atlantic Ocean. Clare County Council is the local authority. The county had a population of 118,81 ...

. It was constructed at a cost of more than £700m in one of the largest capital projects in the history of the state. The station operates largely on

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when ...

, making it both unique in the context of Irish electricity production and the country's single largest emitter of

greenhouse gases A greenhouse gas (GHG or GhG) is a gas that absorbs and emits radiant energy within the thermal infrared range, causing the greenhouse effect. The primary greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere are water vapor (), carbon dioxide (), methane ...

. It is capable of meeting around 25% of customer demand across the country. It has two

Heavy Fuel Oil Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO) is a category of fuel oils of a tar-like consistency. Also known as bunker fuel, or residual fuel oil, HFO is the result or remnant from the distillation and cracking process of petroleum. For this reason, HFO is contaminate ...

(HFO) storage tanks with a capacity of 50,000 tonnes which can be used as a back-up fuel if required. Three

Brown Boveri Brown, Boveri & Cie. (Brown, Boveri & Company; BBC) was a Swiss group of electrical engineering companies. It was founded in Zürich, in 1891 by Charles Eugene Lancelot Brown and Walter Boveri who worked at the Maschinenfabrik Oerlikon. In 1970 ...

four-cylinder, single-shaft impulse reaction turbines are directly connected to three generators which generate the power. The steam is generated by three Foster Wheeler two-pass boilers, which convert water into high pressure steam by combustion of the coal. The power station chimneys, at 218m, are the tallest free-standing structures in Ireland.

History

Moneypoint was under construction from 1979 to 1987. Before its construction, Ireland depended heavily on imported oil for its energy. The 1970s sharp increase in oil prices over a short period of time led the government and the Electricity Supply Board to choose coal as a fuel, as it was seen as a plentiful resource with a stable price. A

flywheel A flywheel is a mechanical device which uses the conservation of angular momentum to store rotational energy; a form of kinetic energy proportional to the product of its moment of inertia and the square of its rotational speed. In particular, as ...

synchronous condenser In electrical engineering, a synchronous condenser (sometimes called a syncon, synchronous capacitor or synchronous compensator) is a DC-excited synchronous motor, whose shaft is not connected to anything but spins freely.B. M. Weedy, Electric Po ...

to stabilize the grid was ordered for operation at Moneypoint by 2022. In 2019, the government launched its climate action plan which included a commitment to end the burning of coal in Moneypoint by 2025, and replace coal-fired generation with "low-carbon and renewable technologies". One option being explored is a 400 MW floating wind farm with an onshore hydrogen facility.

References

External links

Official Information Sheet (PDF)Flickr photos
Coal-fired power stations in the Republic of Ireland {{Powerstation-stub