Business

Profits at north's power stations top £40m

Ballylumford Power Station is the north's largest energy generator
Ballylumford Power Station is the north's largest energy generator Ballylumford Power Station is the north's largest energy generator

NORTHERN Ireland's three main power stations made more than £40 million last year as turnover topped more than £400m.

Annual results for the year to December 31 2014 have been filed at Companies House in Belfast for each of the three firms.

Only the Ballylumford Power Station saw profits increase - with those at Kilroot and Coolkeeragh seeing a drop in fortunes.

The Ballylumford plant at Islandmagee, owned by US-based group AES recorded profits more than trebling to £10.3m from £3.3m.

With a generating capacity of 1,300MW it is Northern Ireland's largest power station and provides work for around 154 people.

However, in the company's annual accounts, directors confirm that parts of the 'B' station will close at the end of this year.

The chimneys will not meet new EU regulations on emissions beyond 2015 "without significant investment" they said.

Two thermal units are being refurbished to generate around 250MW of power - less than half of the B station's current capacity.

Kilroot Power Station, also owned by AES, saw sales drop to £133.5m from £187.6m resulting in profits after tax more than halving to £19.3m from £47.7m.

In the firm's strategic report, directors blamed lower turnover on "unfavourable gas/coal spread, mild weather and more outages".

The plant, near Carrickfergus, employs around 117 people and is the north's only remaining coal powered station.

Gas plant Coolkeeragh, owned by ESB saw profit after tax fall to £1.9m from £9m in 2013.

Turnover for the year at the Maydown based facility fell to £130.6m from 169m.

The 400MW power plant generates power for the single electricity market using gas brought in from Scotland.

Profits at the north's power stations have been slashed in recent years due to the ending of lucrative contracts for electricity generation which dated back more than 20 years.

As recently as 2010, the three generators posted profits in excess of £100m combined.

The Utility Regulator forced the cancellation of the contracts which had been signed with Northern Ireland Electricity at the time of its privatisation in 1992.

The legacy contracts were widely recognised as particularly generous towards the north's power generators and were consistently cited as one of the main factors behind the region's historically high electricity prices.

Under the terms of the deals they could not be cancelled until 2010 at the earliest.

At Kilroot, construction work got under way last month on a new battery energy storage facility.

The 100MW capacity project will collect energy produced by wind farms to support the electricity grid when required.

AES said it hoped the facility would be operational by the end of this year.