Tipp can lead fight against climate change
The Silvermines hydro-electric station is set to take its most critical step to date when it is ratified as a ‘Project of Common Interest’ next month by the European Parliament.
The planned 360MW hydro-electricity plant is one of only three Irish electricity projects included in the 151 strong list of Projects of Special Interest (PCI) list compiled by the European Commission last November and will now go before parliament for ratification next month.
With a commitment in Ireland’s Climate Action Plan to support all PCI projects, the inclusion of Silvermines Hydro, which has the capacity to generate electricity for 200,000 homes, on the PCI list was essential for the project, its CEO and founder Darren Quinn said.
“Inclusion on the PCI list underpins this project and really takes us to a whole new level of certainty,” he added. “The enthusiasm and interest for the project at European level has been hugely reassuring and PCI status ultimately states that the project is not just of Irish but European importance when it comes to meeting climate change targets.
“This is very significant validation of our Silvermines Project. Strict criteria are required for PCI status and we tick all the right boxes. It’s about security of supply, about increasing competition on energy markets by offering alternatives to consumers and about contributing to the sustainability objective by supporting renewable generation. It’s essentially about being a major renewable infrastructure project and large grid storage and Silvermines Hydro is that.”
Critically, PCI status streamlines permit granting procedures as it sets a time limit for planning permissions to be approved. It also secures an improved, faster and better streamlined environmental assessment process, puts a procedure in place that allows for the allocation of investment (construction) costs among Member States benefiting from the PCI and opens the possibility for receiving financial assistance under the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) in the form of grants and innovative financial instruments.
The inclusion of the project on the EC’s PCI list was welcomed by Dáil Deputy Alan Kelly, who as Minister for the Environment in 2016 gave critical support for the project when he included it in the government’s White Paper for Energy.
“PCI status is a game-changer for the project. The first critical step was to get it into the White Paper, which I was delighted to make happen as Minister for the Environment as I have been fully committed and proud to work on this project from the moment Darren Quinn came into my office in 2015. Getting PCI status then became the key objective, not least after the Climate Change Action Plan committed to support all PCI projects. I have to congratulate the development team at Silvermines Hydro on how they have gone about this. This project is going to put not just Silvermines but Tipperary on the map as a huge contributor to the decarbonization of our country as it has the capacity to provide green electricity to 200,000 homes.
“It’s also a project that’s going to bring a huge amount of investment and jobs during the four-year construction phase and long-term job creation afterwards. It’s a project we are extremely proud of and one I am looking forward to continue supporting to make sure it goes the distance and plants a very important flag for Tipperary as a leader in the fight against climate change.”
Silvermines Hydro will generate electricity from a storage-based technology. Water from a higher elevation reservoir will be released to a lower reservoir, flowing through giant turbines and generating electricity in the process. The water is pumped from a lower reservoir to the higher reservoir at night or during low electricity demand periods.
The lower reservoir already exists at the site by way of an open-cast mine flooded to a depth of some 70m at the foot of the Silvermines Mountains. A cost-benefit analysis for the project has demonstrated significant societal benefits to Tipperary and Ireland.