Increasing breakdowns and maintenance work on the Republic's older power stations threatens to create a power crisis if urgent action is not taken.
A new report by the ESB National Grid shows that, on average, only 78 per cent of generating plants are available to produce power at any one time. The figures are contained in the Generation Adequacy Report 2004-2010.
In previous years, availability hovered in the mid-1980s, but due to the age of many stations this has fallen sharply. The report warns that with demand set to rise by up to 4.3 per cent the availability of stations is becoming a key consideration.
The report examines several different scenarios. All of them show that additional generating capacity will be needed in the years ahead. The most alarming scenario suggests that, with just 78 per cent of stations producing power and high demand from customers, almost 1,200 megawatts may be needed by 2007. The more benign scenario suggests only 27 additional megawatts will be needed.
Addressing the availability issue, the report says: "At present, availability is substantially below historical trends and outside international standards and leads to large deficits of plants.
"However, if availability improvement measures are sufficiently effective, the supply/demand balance could be restored without the need for excessive amounts of additional plant above that which may be provided by the CER's latest competition."
The ESB National Grid report does not examine the reasons behind this, but it is understood breakdowns and maintenance at plants is the main cause.
The ESB, as the largest generator, is understood to have experienced several breakdowns during 2003 at some of its plants. However, the company said yesterday it maintained plants to the highest standards and had its own skilled technicians on site to do deal with problems.
"We are the largest generator, with 19 major power stations, and our portfolio of plants includes stations constructed in the 1950s as well as other units [Poolbeg and Moneypoint\] built in the 1980s and 1990s," explained a spokesman.
"The age of power stations, combined with the lack of maintenance opportunities due to the tightness between load and capacity, can cause stations to experience faults."
