Last year represented a significant milestone on the road to Bord na Mona’s 2015 target to co-fire its Edenderry power plant to a 30% level with biomass. In 2010, 110,000 tonnes of biomass material passed through the plant, representing a 12% co-firing rate. This leaves Bord na Mona on track to hit a 15% level this year, which will be the fourth year of co-firing leaving them confident that the 30% target will be achieved by 2015.
This is critically important to Bord na Mona as the publication of the National Renewable Energy Action Plan (NREAP) confirms the key role that co-firing in the peat stations will play in the achievement of Ireland’s mandatory renewable target by 2020.
Bord na Mona is now the biggest consumer of biomass in the State. More importantly, the 12% co-firing rate resulted in an equivalent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from the plant, equating to almost 100,000t of CO2, and resulted in the production of 85,000 MWh of dispatchable green electricity. This is sufficient to power approximately 15,000 homes and is equivalent to the annual output from a typical 35MW wind farm.