Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 11 December 2012
296. Deputy Clare Daly asked the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government the actions he will take following the revelations by the European Environmental Agency of the substantial cost of air pollution from a number of industrial facilities particularly ESB power plants amounting to the sum of €1 billion for 2009 [55235/12]
View answerAll power plants in Ireland are subject to the licensing, monitoring and enforcement requirements of the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) regime. The activities of companies operating with an IPPC licence are monitored by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to ensure that the terms of their licences are respected, including in relation to emissions.
In addition to the requirements of IPPC, the provisions of the Large Combustion Plant Directive (LCPD) 2001/80/EC also apply to combustion plants with a thermal output of 50MW or more. The LCPD aims to reduce acidification, ground-level ozone and particles by controlling emissions of sulphur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx) and particulate matter (PM) from power stations running on solid, liquid or gaseous fuel.
Ireland developed a national emissions reduction plan (NERP) under Article 4 (6) of the 2001 LCPD, which is a mechanism that allows “existing plant”, as defined in the Directive, to achieve the environmental objectives of the Directive in a cost-effective manner through the installation of abatement at selected qualifying plants. The NERP option was chosen because it provided both an environmentally ambitious and a cost-effective compliance route for Ireland. The ESB and other national operators made a commitment to achieve emission limits for SO2 and NOx from existing plants that were significantly more ambitious than the minimum requirements of the LCPD. In the period from 2008 to 2016, emission reductions are 27% more ambitious for SO2 and 46% more ambitious for NOx emissions.
The EEA study referenced in the question did not assess whether the emissions of a given facility are consistent with its legal requirements. There has been no breach of IPPC licensing conditions by ESB or other power plants. Monitoring undertaken by the EPA has shown that total emissions from such plants are consistently below the levels prescribed to ensure adequate protection of human health and the environment.
The LCPD has now been recast by the Industrial Emissions Directive 2010/75/EU, in respect of which my Department is currently preparing Regulations to achieve transposition into national legislation. As part of the transposition process, my Department is assessing appropriate compliance options for older plants set out under the Directive to ensure that operators continue to commit to ambitious targets that strike the appropriate balance between protection of human health and the environment and cost effectiveness of the abatement solutions.
