Senior technical and engineering staff in the ESB have called on TDs to reject proposals in the Electricity Regulation Bill to open up the market to Combined Heat and Power (CHP) operators.
The Dail committee is expected to end its deliberations today. Government amendments to the Bill could open up to 45 per cent of the electricity market to private developers within a year, according to industry sources.
The staff involved, who are members of MSF, say the proposals breach the Government commitment to restrict competition to the 350 largest customers of the ESB during the initial phase of liberalising the energy market.
However, the legislation allows for "alternative energy" producers to have 100 per cent access to the market from the start. Under the amended Bill CHP would be included with wind and hydropower as an alternative energy source.
Last night the chairman of the ESB group of unions, Mr Denis Blanch, said the MSF's proposed amendments to the Bill were not supported by other employees because they did not go far enough.
The chairman of the MSF branch concerned, Mr Tom Canning, said the Government's decision to amend the legislation was a breach of its commitments to the unions and the ESB during negotiations on the Cost and Competitiveness Review. On the basis of those commitments the unions had agreed to massive redundancies and changed work practices.
A campaign to include CHP in the "alternative" energy category followed intensive lobbying by Treasury Holdings, which said EU funding for the National Conference Centre was in jeopardy because the ESB could not provide power within one year of its proposed opening. The secretary of the ESB, Mr Larry Donald, wrote to the Joint Committee on Public Enterprise and Transport last week denying this. He said power for the centre could be supplied "in advance of its opening date".
Mr Canning said CHP was difficult to define and impossible to police. If private companies were allowed to generate electricity ostensibly to provide heating, it would "allow developers of office blocks, retail parks and apartments to install CHP and to sell and distribute electricity to any customer either inside or outside of the development".
The ESB would have to carry the current from CHP operators and would face price regulation of distribution charges, while CHP operators could "cherrypick" its customers.