Seven consortiums have expressed an interest in building a new electricity power station designed to come on stream by 2005.

The list published by the Commission for Energy Regulation (CER) indicates a strong level of initial interest in the competition, encouraged by a contract available to the successful bidder to sell power to the ESB for up to 10 years.

The CER will decide the winner on the basis of the lowest price, subject to technical, financial and regulatory requirements. It could decide to award the contract to one of the bidders planning a large power station, or to two or more of the groups planning smaller stations.

Viridian Power, the Northern Ireland company running the State's only large privately-owned station at Huntstown, is among the bidders. It proposes building a 400 MW plant beside its existing plant in west Dublin.

Another significant expression of interest is from British group Scottish & Southern Energy and Bord Gais Éireann, which are jointly planning a large plant at Plattin in Co Meath. The US investment bank Babcock & Brown is behind the Irish Power Energy consortium, which is proposing a plant in Powerstown in Fingal, close to the existing Viridian site.

Rolls Royce Power Ventures, a subsidiary of the car company which operates 30 plants worldwide, is proposing to build a smaller plant at Dungarvan, Co Waterford.

As expected, Aughinish Allumina, the alumina company located near Foynes, Co Limerick, is also listed among those expressing an interest. Now a subsidiary of Swiss company Glencore, it would produce power for its own plant and make a considerable surplus available to the national grid.

The regulator has also received an expression of interest from the giant US-quoted power company, AES Electric, which currently runs the Kilroot plant in Co Antrim. It is not clear whether it plans to build a new facility to meet the new contract, or whether it believes it will have excess capacity from its current plant to be transported to the Republic through the interconnector.

The final bidder is Mountainside Properties, which is believed to envisage building a plant at Tynagh in east Galway. The CER would not reveal the parties behind the different consortiums, but Mountainside is believed to include local Irish business interests. The large Turkish construction company, Gama, which is involved in power plant construction here, had been part of this consortium but is now believed to have withdrawn from it.

The ESB contract to the winner, which would run for a maximum of 10 years, would be worth over €1.4 billion. This is seen as central to attracting interest, as it guarantees a return for a period on an investment likely to be €250 million for the larger projects.

Even with this contract, the bidders may have to seek parent company or other guarantees to cover a further five to seven years to get bank finance for their projects.

The closing date for receipt of tenders from the bidders is September 5th, 2003, and the winner is expected to be announced by October 20th, 2003.