Should Coal Replace Coal? Options for the Irish Electricity Market

ESRI working papers represent un-refereed work-in-progress by researchers who are solely responsible for the content and any views expressed therein. Any comments on these papers will be welcome and should be sent to the author(s) by email. Papers may be downloaded for personal use only.

March 20, 2012
Attachment Size
Download PDF 428.25 KB

The Moneypoint coal plant is nearing the end of its useful life and will need to be replaced. For Moneypoint's replacement, we consider different types of baseload technologies: coal plants with and without carbon capture, combined-cycle gas plants and a nuclear plant. This paper compares how the different types of plant are likely to affect the net costs of the Single Electricity Market under a number of fossil fuel and carbon price scenarios and highlights issues that might be of interest to final consumers and policy makers, namely effects on short-run prices, emissions and energy security.