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Danish firms team up to give Dublin green power

The waste-to-energy plant in Dublin will consume 600,000 tonnes of waste annually – the equivalent of Denmark’s largest such facility, the Vestforbrænding near Copenhagen.

Dublin’s first waste-to-energy plant is set to come on line in 2012. COWI, in partnership with RPS of Ireland, is the client's representative for the project and Danish architect firm Friis & Moltke has designed the buildings.

Dublin’s first waste-fired combined heat and power plant will start operation four years from now on a site on the Irish capital’s waterfront that is now a junk yard. The modern waste-to-energy plant will turn refuse into power for 65,000 homes and heat for 50,000.

The plant will consume 600,000 tonnes of waste annually – the equivalent of Denmark’s largest such facility, the Vestforbrænding waste-to-energy plant near Copenhagen – and it will produce 59 megawatts of power and 55 megawatts of heat in the process.

The Dublin plant will be set up as a public-private partnership (PPP) between the City of Dublin, Denmark’s DONG Energy and US-based Covanta Energy. The PPP company has retained Danish architects Friis & Moltke to shape the building.

Client's representative since 2001 COWI has served on the project since it began in 2001 in a joint venture with Ireland’s RPS Consulting Engineers. The team has advised Dublin City Council on issues such as location, technology, environment, public involvement, PPP tendering and project planning and has also been responsible for the procurement, selecting the PPP partner that will build and operate the plant.

Public Involvement The original plan called for the plant to be completed by 2008, but, according to COWI Project Manager Ole Bang, a statutory approval procedure that included a long public hearing phase delayed the schedule. An extensive public involvement programme has been ongoing throughout the development to explain all aspects of the project and thus reduce popular opposition.

“Some of the opposition was related to location, increased traffic, the way the facility would look and concern about emissions,” Bang explains. “The concerns stem no doubt from the fact that this is the first time in Ireland that this type of plant is built near a populated area.

When it comes to airborne pollutants, strict EU limits and constant monitoring make waste-to-energy plants safe, according to Bang.

“Compared to other sources of pollution, incineration is closely regulated. People can feel safe with it.”

Common in Denmark While Ireland is taking its first steps with waste-to-energy other countries have long since come to rely on the technology. In Denmark, for example, 29 waste-to-energy plants provide three per cent of the country's energy needs.

With a quarter of all municipal solid waste (MSW) being used to produce energy, Denmark has the world's highest degree of incineration.

By Kathrine Schmeichel, kats@cowi.dk
Published: 27.03.2009

District heating, new to Dublin

Since district heating in Ireland is in its infancy, Dublin’s new combined heat and power plant will mainly make use of its power generating capacity. To start with, only 1,000 new homes and the waterfront National Conference Centre will be using the plant’s climate-friendly heat.

Following the small start, Dublin plans to extend district heating throughout the city and has hired COWI/RPS to carry out a feasibility study that will determine how new and existing buildings can be connected to the network. Excess heat from the Guinness brewery may be one of the heat sources for the expanded district heating network.