Sustainability Update

Driving the corporate commitment to the sustainability strategy

In the first of a series of articles, Fergus Keane, of ESB Power Generation Sustainability, updates us on the latest initiatives to support the ESB Corporate Strategy. Renewable pilot sites for Power Generation stations: Cathleen's Fall is one of Power Generation's test sites for the development of small scale renewables, which will be very visible evidence of the commitment to generating clean energy. Cathleen's Fall is a 100% renewable station in that all of its power is generated from hydro-electric, including its house set, which powers local load.

There is also potential for wind generation on the site, and the first step here is the installation of a wind mast, which will assess this potential and provide hard data on the power we can harness from a wind turbine. The data is already showing wind speeds which are steadily in excess of the critical 10 m s-1 level, which is important for commercial viability.

Transport: The Government plans to have 100,000 people cycling to work under its new transport initiative. But what about intraworkplace travel? ESB Power Generation has some of the largest sites in Ireland, and consequently, there are long travel distances associated with these. Lough Ree Power have come up with the solution to this, by providing bicycles on site to staff who need to travel around the plant.

Community Involvement: An important aspect of sustainability week will be the involvement of the local communities upon which power stations have relied on for many decades ESB Power Generation stations will be inviting local schools, who are undertaking the 'Energy Module' of the Green Flag qualification, to become involved in sustainability initiatives.

Erne has launched an initiative where local schools will be competing to build a micro hydro-turbine. A purpose-built test kit has been developed at Erne, which will be used to test the output from each of the school-built turbines.

One Green Flag school, Mount Anville national school, visited Poolbeg station on Friday March 13th, on the eve of sustainability week. The two fifth-classes listened to a presentation by Poolbeg sustainability champion Suzanne Moran and had a short tour of the station. This was also done in the context of Engineering Week, which emphasises the importance of ensuring sufficient engineers are available to support the 'smart economy' in the years ahead, as announced by An Taoiseach, Brian Cowen TD, at the Engineers Ireland HQ the previous Wednesday.