Last week Britain’s Private Eye magazine (page 9 of the current issue 1301, not available online) reported on the curious case of the proposed new power station at Thorpe Marsh near Doncaster in northern England. The 1,500 megawatt natural gas-powered station has been given the green light by David Cameron’s government. Nothing odd about this so far, though the development cost of the station is eye-watering – GBP 1bn (€1.2bn) to build and the operator also needs to have in place a contract with a natural-gas supplier to provide about GBP 0.5bn (€0.6bn) of gas a year to the station so that it can generate electricity. The developer would then have a contract to supply electricity to the UK’s national grid and would generate income and profit over a couple of decades which would pay for the initial investment.
What is odd is the development has been awarded to a company, Thorpe Marsh Power Limited, which doesn’t have assets of any great account. However the Eye reports that this company is fronted by a certain Peter Wilcox who has previously been associated with power companies whose registered address was 52/54 Gracechurch Street in the City of London. Which just happens to be the registered address of companies in the ESB international group.
Why the secrecy? The Eye suggests that it is for PR reasons, that the station might never be built and hundreds of much-needed local jobs might never materialise and the company behind the development might not want to be associated with undelivered promises.
But could there be a more nationalistic reason? Might it be that the ESB, the Irish state electricity generation and distribution company wouldn’t want to be seen to be investing nearly €2bn in another jurisdiction whilst ignoring the need for less profitable infrastructure improvement in the auld sod? At a time when the national capital investment programme has been severely trimmed in the ongoing austerity, overseen by our bailout friends, might the ESB be a little embarrassed that it is set to invest €2bn overseas?
The ESB press office was asked for a comment on the Private Eye story and was specifically asked if it is indeed behind the proposed development at Thorpe Marsh in England. There has not been any comment forthcoming yet.
UPDATE: 22nd November, 2o11. The ESB press office in Dublin has denied that the ESB is involved now or in the past with this development. A case of excess speculation by the Eye on this occasion it seems.
NAMA Wine Lake 
ESBI have several interests in the UK – given the expectation of the interconnector between Ireland and Britain.
They are the owner (50%) of Marchwood – which I thought it was near Southampton. I was aware they had a couple of options on potential sites across the UK and they usually proceed with another partner.
I don’t know anything about the above project, but the Marchwood was project financed and unlikely to have recourse to the Company nor state.
Methinks an error as Thorpe Marsh is a JV between GE and Acorn and the registered office is elsewhere in London
@KevinO, have you a link? Private Eye seemed sure-footed in its reporting. The registered office of the Thorpe Marsh power-station is indeed elsewhere (that is, not at the same address as ESB international units) but the company’s front man has been associated with companies which have ended up being registered at the same building as ESB group companies and that is what led Private Eye to suggest that it may be the ESB behind the project.
This press release by npower suggests GE might provide parts and “Acorn Power were the only firm named by DECC in the project yesterday, but they have been the facilitators rather than the funders, according to Mr Page.”
http://www.npower.com/Large-Business/Energy-news/Industry-news/iandc_news_general_electric
This information could be accessed under the EIR* regs both in Ireland and in the UK. The ESB as a semi state should be subject to them in Ireland and there is likely to be a public body in the UK that holds information in relation to this project.
*These regs were used against NAMA and Anglo recently and oblige public authorities to disclose environmental information that they hold to the public.
[…] people of Ireland and the government has decided to reduce the CEO pay. And they did bravo! I mean ESB seems to be in good shape since they investi big time in the UK. I just wanted to highlight the salary adjustment required […]