The former West Offaly Power station in Shannonbridge, which is due to be demolished next year. A diesel-fuelled emergency power generation facility at the site has not yet supplied power to the national grid.

Shannonbridge emergency power plant yet to supply to grid

Tadhg Carey

Published: Fri 29 Aug 2025, 4:43 PM

A 262MW emergency power generation facility in Shannonbridge has not yet been called into use to provide power to the national grid.

The facility, at the former West Offaly Power station, was given the go-ahead in April 2023 by then Environment Minister Eamon Ryan, as part of a national drive to combat potential winter power shortages.

It contains eight gas turbine units, fuelled by diesel oil, eight 30-metre tall steel exhaust stacks and two 110kV generator step-up transformers. It is designed to have a maximum running time of 500 hours per annum, and operate only intermittently to meet emergency supply needs.

This temporary generation capacity will be in place until 2027 at the earliest, with provision in the legislation to extend to 2028. However, to date, it has not been required to supplement the grid.

Last week EirGrid said that six of the eight units were available for power generation since November 2024, with the complete facility becoming available in March last.

Plans for the facility emerged after EirGrid was directed by the Commission for for Regulation of Utilities (CRU) to secure approximately 750 MW of Temporary Emergency Generation (TEG)

The CRU indicated if the emergency generation did not proceed, there would be a clear risk that power outages could occur.

In a statement, EirGrid confirmed the TEG at Shannonbridge had not been “dispatched”, meaning the power plants has not been used to meet current electricity demand.

However, it said even if not dispatched, the potential availability of the supply helps to improve the security of the system.

EirGrid said: “In response to Ireland’s challenging adequacy position, the Commission for the Regulation of Utilities (CRU) developed a programme of work and actions in 2021 to provide additional stability and resilience to the power system in Ireland.

“This programme of work included the procurement of Temporary Emergency Generation (TEG) capacity to remain available until the necessary replacement capacity has been secured. Currently approximately 650 MW of installed Temporary Emergency Generation is available on the system, located at North Wall, Huntstown, Shannonbridge and Tarbert.

EirGrid dispatched TEG units at North Wall and Huntstown once in north Dublin in June 2025, in order to manage local transmission constraints following a fault on a transmission circuit (cable) in Dublin. The deployment of TEG can be an important tool to ensure the power system remains secure when market-based measures are not sufficient as was the case in that instance.

“The West Offaly Shannonbridge units became available from March 2025 (6 of the 8 units were already available over Winter since November 2024). EirGrid can confirm that TEG at Shannonbridge has not been dispatched.

“Even when TEG is not physically dispatched, it has significant benefits for the electricity system as it has helped improve the adequacy position in Ireland, by contributing to real-time operational margins on the power system,” it added.

Last month it emerged that the ESB intends to proceed with the demolition of the former West Offaly Power station at Shannonbridge in 2026.