EPower, the electricity and gas utility backed by Mr Denis O'Brien, has concluded a joint venture agreement with BP. The new business, which will operate under the ePower name will be 60 per cent owned by the Irish group and 40 per cent owned by the British company. It aims to capture 40 per cent of the deregulated electricity market and will also move into the gas market when it is deregulated, according to Mr Leslie Buckley, the ePower chairman. At present the company is concentrating on business customers but is making plans to enter the consumer market, which will be liberalised in 2005. Only the market for large electricity consumers, representing 31 per cent of the total, is open to competition.

The Irish group will also take a 40 per cent stake in a €250 million (£197 million) power station being developed by BP and the US businessman Mr Larry Thomas at Powerstown, Fingal, in west Dublin. The new plant should be operational by November 2002.