The operators of a peat-fired power station near Edenderry, Co Offaly, have been told by An Bord Pleánala that they must seek planning permission if they want to burn wood chippings or meat and bonemeal (MBM).
Edenderry Power Ltd, which is currently owned by Eon, a German multinational, had sought a declaration that changing the fuel mix at the 120-megawatt power station to include MBM would be exempted development.
But An Bord Pleanála upheld Offaly County Council's decision that any such move would require planning permission, having regard to the 2000 Planning Act, the regulations made under it and the 1996 Waste Management Act.
The board held that the permitted use was "the generation of electrical power from the combustion of peat" and the addition of meat and bone meal would constitute a material change of use to a "waste recovery facility".
The board's ruling has been hailed as "a significant development in an ongoing feud between the station and the local community", which is represented by the Offaly and Kildare Anti Incinerator Group.
Mr Michael Shanahan, the local national school principal and spokesman for the group, said the community had "signed up" for the power station on the basis of assurances that it would use milled peat only as its fuel.
"There's quite a lot of anger in the area over what is effectively a plan to turn the plant into a waste disposal facility," he said, adding that the community felt "betrayed" by Bord na Móna, which promoted the Edenderry plant.
The plant was promoted as "Europeat-1" when it was first mooted 10 years ago. Despite reservations by environmentalists, it was claimed that it would operate more efficiently than previous peat-fired power plants in Ireland.
Mr Shanahan said the power station had now been in operation for less than three years and, in that period, it had been shut down and re-started repeatedly - indicating that there were problems with its efficiency.
"If they haven't sorted out difficulties in burning milled peat, which is a long and established tradition in the Midlands, on what basis can they justify burning waste matter that they would like to call a fuel?" he asked.
But Mr John Reilly, Edenderry Power's environmental manager, said their aim was to increase the efficiency of the plant, mainly to reduce its annual emissions of one million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) - the most common greenhouse gas.
"The road map for generating electricity from milled peat has been radically changed by Kyoto," he said, referring to the international treaty to cut greenhouse gas emissions. "That's why we have to look at co-fuelling options for this plant." Mr Reilly said Fortum, the Finnish company aquiring Edenderry Power from Eon, was "doing this very successfully" at another power station north of Helsinki. The Government also favoured co-fuelling in its National Climate Change Strategy.
An Bord Pleanála's decision was "a big disappointment from our point of view", he said. "The implication is that any plant seeking to add other material to its fuel, even wood chippings, will have to go through the planning process." Mr Reilly noted that around 200,000 tonnes of MBM was currently in storage here and most of it was being exported to Germany, where it was being used to co-fuel power plants. "They're probably laughing at us," he said.
"MBM is quite similar to milled peat and the chemical nature of the mix wouldn't change to any great extent because MBM and biomass [in the form of wood chippings] would only have accounted for 10 per cent of the fuel we would use." The ESB, which is under contract to purchase the electricity generated by the plant, said it had no comment to make on operational issues. That was a matter for Eon and Fortnum, which is expected to take over later this month.
