Bringing Dublin's Waste to Energy facility to life

RPS, in conjunction with a joint venture partner COWI were Client Representative providing project management, planning, environmental, policy, contractual and communication services for the Dublin Waste to Energy project. 

The plant has a capacity of 600,000 tonnes per annum generating 60 MW of power which is exported to the national grid to supply over 80,000 homes.

Overview

Over the period 2001-’07, the Dublin Waste to Energy project, which was part of a newly adopted integrated waste plan for Dublin City Council on behalf of the four Dublin local authorities, was successfully brought by RPS through site selection, planning and the waste authorisation process.   

Construction commenced in autumn 2014 and the plant was commissioned in 2017. This completed implementation of the Dublin Regional Waste Management Plan first adopted in 2001 and will entirely remove the need for further landfill of residual municipal waste generated in Dublin to be replaced by maximum realistic recycling and energy recovery/district heating.

This project will continue to evolve with plans to capture heat from the plant and supply homes and businesses in the city using a newly built district heating system.  The complete project, plant and district heating system, is the city’s key climate change infrastructure adaption measures enhance the sustainability of Ireland’s capital city.

Solution

RPS' role on this project included site selection; managing the entire process through to construction; managing input and baseline monitoring for the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS); managing the planning and licensing process including Oral Hearings for planning permissions and waste licence; foreshore and CER licence applications.

We also completed a feasibility study assessing the viability of a citywide district heating network for Dublin, Route Selection and clients representative for the laying of pipes at Spencer Dock and Liffey Tunnel.

Our team managed communications and stakeholder consultation throughout the process, as consultation with the local community was a key element in the project. The genuine concerns over emissions were comprehensively dealt with through an innovative stakeholder engagement process including assembling a Community Interest Group (CIG) to represent the views of local people. RPS brought in World Health Organisation experts, GPs and independent health professionals with experience of incineration in other European countries to talk to local people and address their concerns

To address environmental and commercial objections to the European Commission, we led the response team preparing detailed submissions to the EU Commission on policy, environmental, waste and commercial issues. These complaints were eventually rejected by the EU and the project was approved by the four Dublin local authority CEOs in September 2014.