Bord na Móna has announced plans to increase its intake of biomass to 1m tonnes at its Edenderry power station.

The station is set to fully phase out the use of peat in 2023 and will instead increase its use of forestry residues and sustainable biomass by 400,000t to produce electricity.

The announcement was made by head of renewable energy at Bord na Móna Dr John Reilly at Tuesday’s Irbea National Bioenergy Conference.

John explained that the semi-State company has been preparing to increase its intake for a number of years now, having extended planning permission and the licence for the site to 2030.

The company plans to have a 1TWh of renewable electricity generation capacity by 2030.

Gas turbine

In addition to increasing its biomass intake, Bord na Móna is set to invest €100m in extending the gas network to the plant to supply gas to its new high-efficiency gas turbines.

The gas turbines, which currently run off distillate, can be started up within five minutes and can produce 120MW in electricity.

Biomethane

By 2030, the company plans to run the turbines on biomethane, which will be partially sourced from its new 80,000t anaerobic digestion (AD) plant in Laois, which has secured planning permission.

The AD plant was granted planning permission by Laois County Council, but has since been referred to An Bord Pleanála.