€180m investment in renewable power in Mayo to create new opportunities for local economy – Mulherin

‘It was fantastic to receive formal confirmation today from the Mayo Renewable Power that finance for their project at Asahi is finally over the line” said Michelle Mulherin, Fine Gael TD for Mayo. “They will now proceed to build their wood chip biomass power station.”

“Mayo Renewable Power Limited announced has secured the finance for its 42.5MW Electricity Generating Station and Biomass Fuel Processing Facility to be built in Killala in County Mayo. The project, which will be fuelled by woodchip biomass, will cost €180 million and will qualify for Ireland’s Renewable Energy Feed-In Tariff (REFIT) programme.

“I am delighted their relentless efforts have come to fruition after a final push this weekend and I was delighted to have supported them in every way I could throughout.

“Construction on the project will begin immediately and it is expected that the plant will be inoperation by mid 2017. This project, alongside the transatlantic fibre optic cable to be built by Christmas in which Microsoft is a substantial investor, can have a transformative effect on the North Mayo economy bringing investment and jobs.

“ With these synergies the site is now ripe for cloud computing and development of a data centre. As illustrated by the recent Apple announcement of a €850 million investment in a data centre at Athenry these big ICT companies want to locate in areas where there is green energy generation such as that proposed by Mayo Power.

“ Well done to Gerry Crotty, President of Weichert Enterprise and Chairman of Mayo Renewable Power and all on the Mayo power team!’

ENDS