Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 22 January 2014

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Environment, Culture and the Gaeltacht

Proposed Incinerator at Poolbeg: Dublin City Council

2:45 pm

Mr. Michael Phillips:

We would build a separate boiler unit, which is quite normal. In the early stage of providing district heating around town, one would build, for example, a boiler house near St. James's Hospital which could supply the hospital, the brewery and St. Brendan's Hospital. As one builds around certain areas one can install such facilities; for example, in the civic offices we had a combined heat and power plant which supplied out. As those areas expand we would bring in the big pipes and create a whole circuit in order that the town would have a trunk pipeline going through it. In the initial stages, if, say, the waste to energy plant did not go ahead, we would build a boiler house. That means that each individual building does not need its own boiler, which means carbon dioxide emissions are reduced and it is much more efficient.