RPS Wins Project of the Year at the 2023 ACEI Engineering Excellence Awards

Our winning project, a pre-FEED study on Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) in support of Ireland's Climate Action Plan, involves gathering and conditioning CO₂ captured from large-scale emitters in Cork and Dublin - representing 5% of Ireland's overall CO₂ emissions.

Project of the year

We’re delighted to have won Project of the Year at this year’s ACEI Engineering Excellence Awards, which were hosted in the Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin on Friday, 31^st March.

Our winning project, a pre-FEED study on Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) in support of Ireland's Climate Action Plan, involves gathering and conditioning CO₂ captured from large-scale emitters in Cork and Dublin (representing 5% of Ireland's overall CO₂ emissions) and the transport of conditioned CO₂ either to indigenous storage in the depleted Kinsale Gas Field in Cork or to international export by ship from both Cork and Dublin. We completed a detailed Pre-FEED study (Front End Engineering Design), assessing the viability and costs of carbon capture storage (CCS) in these Cork and Dublin cluster locations.

Shortlisted

Our projects were nominated across three categories overall (Civil – Medium, Sustainability - Built Environment, Project Management). And we're equally proud to share that our Ballough AGI Bypass project was highly commended in the Civil – Medium category.

The Ballough AGI Bypass improves the security and resilience of Ireland’s gas network by reducing the critical importance of the existing Ballough Above Ground Installation (AGI).

Before the completion of this project, most natural gas entering Ireland flowed through Ballough, and any interruptions to the gas supply could have had major impacts on large numbers of gas and electricity consumers. Now the Gas Pipeline to the West (GPTTW) is bypassed away from this critical node. This project was achieved with no interruption to gas supply during the works.

It was also a big night for RPS Senior Associate Michael Minehane, who was shortlisted for the 2023 ACEI Future Leader Award. Being profiled by ACEI.ie, Michael was described as:

“An Associate and Chartered Engineer at RPS where he leads a wide range of bridge and transportation projects as Project Manager and Technical Lead. Michael has worked on major national & international infrastructure schemes, significant heritage bridges, rehabilitation schemes and bridge inspection contracts. He has authored numerous technical papers and has won several awards in the field of Civil and Structural Engineering. He was a part-time lecturer at Munster Technological University from 2015-2020 where he designed, delivered, and assessed a module titled BIM for Infrastructure. He is committed to knowledge sharing and participates on a voluntary basis on many industry bodies and committees.”

We'd like to say congratulations and a big thank you to the whole team involved in bringing these projects to fruition - particularly Ciarán Butler who led both projects for RPS, and Michael on his outstanding personal achievement. Our collective efforts showcase how RPS solves problems that matter by devising innovative solutions to make complex easy for our clients.