Electricity Supply Board

The Electricity Supply Board (ESB) (Bord Soláthair an Leictreachais in Irish), sometimes called ESB Ireland to differentiate it from US utilities, is responsible for generating most of the electricity in the Republic of Ireland. The ESB currently has three interconnectors with Northern Ireland Electricity and the Irish Government has recently approved the construction of a subsea East-West Interconnector between Ireland and Wales.

History

The ESB was established by the fledgling Irish Free State government under the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1927 to manage Ireland's electricity supply after the successful Shannon Scheme at Ardnacrusha. The scheme was Ireland's first electricity plant - and at the time, it was believed that it would meet the total energy demands of Ireland, which proved to be an erroneus judgement.

By 1937, plans were being finalised for the construction of several more hydro-electric plants. The plans called for stations at Poulaphouca, Golden Falls, Leixlip (all in Leinster), Clady, Cliff and Cathleen's Fall (between Belleek and Ballyshannon in County Donegal), Carrigadrohid and Inniscarra (in County Cork). All these new plants were completed by 1949, and together harnessed approximately 75% of Ireland's inland water power potential. Many of these plants are still in operation — however their combined capacity falls far short of Ireland's modern needs.

With Ireland's towns and cities benefiting from electricity, the new government pushed the idea of Rural Electrification. Between 1946 and 1979, the ESB connected in excess of 420,000 customers in rural Ireland. The Rural Electrification Scheme has been described as "the Quiet Revolution" because of the major socio-economic change it brought about. The process was greatly helped in 1955 by the Electricity Supply Amendment Act, 1955.

In 1947, the ESB, needing ever more generation capacity, built the North Wall station on a 7.5 acre (30,000 m²) site in Dublin's industrial Port area on the North side of the River Liffey on the site of an old oil refinery. The original station consisted of one 12.5 MW steam turbine that was originally purchased for a power station at Portarlington but instead used at North Wall. Other power stations built around this time included the peat fired stations at Portarlington, County Laois, and Allenwood in County Kildare.

Because risks of becoming dependent on imported fuel sources and the potential for harvesting and utilising indiginous peat, the ESB - in partnership with Bord na Móna - established those stations and ESB also built Lanesboro power station in 1958. Located in County Longford, the plant burns peat, cut by Bord na Móna in the bogs of the Irish Midlands. In 1965 the Shannonbridge station was commissioned. It is located in County Offaly. The two stations have been replaced by new peat-fired stations near the same locations, and peat also used to power the independent Edenderry Power plant, in County Offaly.

As in most countries, energy consumption is low at night and high during the day. Aware of the substantial waste of night-time capacity, the ESB commissioned the Turlough Hill pumped storage hydro-electric station in 1968. This station, located in County Wicklow, pumps water uphill at night with the excess energy created by other stations, and releases it downhill during the day to turn turbines. The station can store up to 292 MW of power - making it technically the fifth largest source of energy during the day in Ireland.

The 1970s brought about a continued increase in Ireland's industrialisation and with it, a greater demand for energy. This new demand was to be met by the construction of the country's two largest power stations — Poolbeg in 1971 and Moneypoint in 1979. The latter, in County Clare, remains Ireland's only coal-burning plant and can produce about 910 MW - just shy of the 1015 MW capacity of Poolbeg. In 2002 and 2003, new independent stations were constructed - Huntstown Power (north Dublin) and Dublin Bay Power (Ringsend, Dublin).

In 1991, the ESB established the ESB Archive to store historical documents relating to the company and its impact on Irish life.

On 8 September 2003, two of the last remaining places in Ireland unconnected to the national grid - Inishturbot and Inishturk (County Galway) islands (off the coast of Galway)- were finally connected to the mains supply. Some islands are still powered by small diesel-run power stations.

The ESB had a monopoly in the Irish electricity market for the best part of a century. Under European Union legislation, the Irish electricity market is to be opened to full competition for domestic users in 2005. Business users have already been able to choose their electricity supplier for some years.

On 16 March 2005, the ESB announced that it is to sell its ShopElectric (ESB Retail) chain of shops, with the exception of the Dublin Fleet Street and Cork city centre outlets, to Bank of Scotland (Ireland), who will convert them into high street banks. Existing staff are to be offered positions as bank tellers.

Workers

The ESB is one of the largest companies in Ireland and employs over 8,500 people, it is 5% owned by its workers - this ownership is know as ESB ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan) Trustee Limited. The company is heavily unionised with the Technical, Engineering and Electrical Union (TEEU) being one of the largest unions in the company. The last major strike was in 1991, though strike action had been threatened as recently as February 2005 and often at times of industrial dispute. National surveys show, in line with other similar semi-state sector workers, that wages are above the national average - one recent survey [1] showed that the average salary costs are twice the national average. It should also be remembered that workers of the company may be "on call" after hours, weekends and at holidays because of the unpredictability of emergencies.

Standards

The Shannon Scheme was the start of the ESB's reliance on German electro-technology, especially for plant, in particular Siemens and the associated 220 volt supply. Domestic equipment followed the UK British Standards for the most part with very few exceptions, perhaps the only one being that Irish bathrooms generally do not have cord-operated lights but rather a traditional light switch outside.

Facilities

Although Ireland has no nuclear power plants, an Act of the Oireachtas in 1971 created the Nuclear Energy Board. Later there was a proposal to build a nuclear power plant at Carnsore Point, and preparatory work was carried out, but these never resulted in an operational plant, owing to widespread public opposition. Most of the ESB's generation capacity relies on peat, coal, oil, and wind generation. Moneypoint and Poolbeg are the two most significant fossil fuel power stations — their combined capacity accounts for over a third of total capacity. Much of the peat is supplied by Bord na Móna while Bord Gáis supplies gas via its network.

The Ardnacrusha hydro-electric scheme and Turlough Hill pumped storage scheme are the most significant renewable energy plants. There are additional hydro-electric schemes on the rivers Clady, Erne, Lee and Liffey. The company also operates a few small wind farms throughout the country through its subsidary Hibernian Wind Energy.

Capacity of Major ESB Plants

Companies

Today the ESB consists of several distinct divisions: ESB Power Generation is responsible for electricity generation and has 19 power stations and a wind power subsidiary; ESB International (ESBI) manages projects abroad in the electricity supply, generation and distribution markets; ESB National Grid manages the National Grid, and also transmits energy from other suppliers, including Airtricity; ESBI Computing manages large government and international information technology projects. ESB Retail operate a chain of high street electrical shops under the ShopElectric brand. These are to be sold to Bank of Scotland (Ireland).

It has been policy for some years that the ESB National Grid division, which operates the national grid, is to be separated into an independent Transmission System Operator, called Eirgrid plc. However agreement to accomplish this has been frequently delayed.

ESB has also been involved in telecommunications, as part owner of Ocean, a telecommunications company which was a joint venture with BT Group plc. This was later merged with Esat Telecom (now BT Ireland), although the brand partially remains as an ISP service, oceanfree.net.