County: Offaly
Fuel Type: Milled Peat
Capacity: 135MW
Status: Inactive
Commissioned: 2004
Decommissioned: 2020
West Offaly Power was a milled peat power station located on the banks of the River Shannon at Shannonbridge, Co Offaly. Built as a replacement for the ageing 125 MW Shannonbridge power station, the new plant housed a single boiler/turbine unit with an electrical output of 135 MW.
The station had a 15-year contract to burn peat supplied by Bord Na Móna and closed in 2020. The official opening of the station took place on 8 July 2005. Read how the event was covered in the July/August 2005 edition of ESB's staff newspaper Electric Mail.
It was one of the largest purpose-built peat-fired stations in the world, constructed in line with the EU’s Large Combustion Plant Directive.
The station used modern fluidised bed technology to burn peat in an environmentally-friendly and efficient way. Over 37% of the primary energy supplied from the fuel was converted to electricity and supplied to the grid.