Offaly boost as Bord na Mona recruits one hundred people each year
BORD na Mona will be recruiting about 100 people a year for high skilled and high paid jobs, company chief Tom Donnellan has said.
Mr Donnellan said about 300 people had been recruited in the last two years between Bord na Mona's renewable energy activities and other businesses.
“We are investing about €300m a year in renewables and we have a plan for the next 10 years to do that and our target is about €2.7bn investment. We spent €300m last year and we're spending €300m this year,” said Mr Donnellan.
“So it's not [just an] ambition that we have. We're putting this money into the ground. And that is transforming the company and it's transforming employment as well.”
He was speaking last Thursday at the launch of this year's Accelerator Green programme in Boora, a project where Bord na Mona provides mentoring and support for companies in the sustainability sector.
“We have transformed ourselves over the last three years into a leading company in the climate solutions area. We've transformed ourselves in the renewable space, we've now added over 200 employees to the renewables team, a high calibre, professional grade, skilled workforce from management, engineers, project managers [and] we just launched an apprenticeship programme,” said Mr Donnellan.
With its exit from peat production, Bord na Mona has been developing wind farms, switching its power plant near Edenderry to 100% biomass, and investing in battery, hydrogen and anaerobic digester projects.
The Bord na Mona chief said Edenderry Power, which is still co-fired with peat and biomass (wood chip), will “go to” full biomass fuel “at the end of this year”.
“The board has just approved a €30m investment to upgrade it which will happen during the summer. And the board has also approved a plan to make a gas line there so we can bring hydrogen to the plant when it comes on board.”
Bord na Mona's most recent wind farm to begin supplying electricity to the grid is Cloncreen in east Offaly and the company has three other projects in development, including Derrinlough in west Offaly.
Mr Donnellan added: “We just announced before Christmas a joint venture for offshore development because we believe that after 2030 offshore will be where the renewables play is and it will drive a lot of the hydrogen development.”
He said the company was also driving the circular economy through its involvement in the waste and recycling business.
He referred to Bord na Mona's business in Tullamore (formerly AES): “We've made a lot of investments in Tullamore. We've invested over the last two years €5m upgrading that facility and we continue to drive the circular economy, recycling that material.”
He also indicated that the company's bog restoration programme for “storing carbon”, where employees formerly involved in cutting turf now rehabilitate peatlands instead, will be extended.
“We have redeployed 250 employees who were heretofore harvesting peat, they're now rehabilitation peatlands. We're half way through a project of four years and we've half of the project complete, we're now looking to extend that to five years and even five-and-a-half years as we speak at the moment.”
Mr Donnellan said: “All of that added up has allowed Bord na Mona to be in a totally different place than it was. We're now financially sound, we're paying a dividend to the State, all the rest of the income we make is reinvested back into the business.”
The companies participating in this year's Accelerate Green programme are NanobOx, Hibra Design, HaPPE Earth, Hub360, Superfy, Trinity Green Energy, EC Charging and CW Applied Technology.
They are involved in a broad range of different activities, from the creation of sustainable aprons for the health sector to carbon capture technology.
Bord na Mona does not engage in 'Dragons' Den' style investment with the companies, Mr Donnellan stressed, but some of them do go on to building relationships with the energy giant, sometimes as suppliers.
A Bord na Mona planning application for a hydrogen pilot project at the Mountlucas wind farm is currently with Offaly County Council and a decision is due on March 28.
The energy company told council planners on February 1 that the hydrogen plant will operate for 15 years if it gets the green light.
Meanwhile, Bord na Mona last week failed in a High Court appeal over its refusal to release information on whether biomass fuel it uses for power generation comes from sustainable sources.
The case followed an environmental information request from the Right to Know group to Bord na Mona seeking information on the sources of its biomass.
While Bord na Mona has an agreement with Coillte for the supply of the wood fuel, biomass is also imported for burning at the Edenderry Power station.