Ireland’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is prosecuting ESB over the temperature of cooling water discharged earlier this summer into the River Shannon from its peat-burning 100MW Lough Ree power plant in County Longford.

The power station is the generator’s third largest peat-fuelled facility. ESB has begun switching its peat burners to become co-firing plant using other biomass. The plants will become fully biomass powered stations by the late 2020s.