Tyrone Energy Firm Awarded £58m NI Water Contract
Tyrone energy firm Go Power has been awarded a £58 million contract to supply NI Water with electricity.
The Cookstown company, previously known as the Lissan Coal Company (LCC Power), rebranded itself as ‘Go Power’ last month after its chain of ‘Go’ filling stations.
Continuing to expand, the firm now powers all of the North’s street lights, councils and the Stormont estate.
Last month, it signed up to become one of Ulster Rugby’s main jersey sponsors in a two year deal.
Now it has won the contract for the largest consumer of electricity in Northern Ireland – NI Water.
The new contract covers the company’s entire metered electricity requirements for the next two years and includes a requirement for 30% of NI Water’s electricity to come from renewable sources, bringing it closer to the Assembly’s target of 40% of electricity from renewable sources by 2020.
Go Power’s managing director, Michael Loughran said the Tyrone company is “delighted” with the new contract.
“We look forward to working closely with NI Water and drawing on our skills and expertise to deliver a first class energy product, customer service and account management.”
Ronan Larkin Director of NI Water’s Finance and Regulation department said the contract is one of NI Water’s largest in terms of annual revenue expenditure.
“We are confident the terms of the contract will provide excellent value for money for NI Water while meeting our own environmental target of 40% renewable by 2021.
“It is often a surprise to people that NI Water is the largest consumer of electricity. However, with over 26,700km of water mains and 15,250km of sewers and thousands of assets to maintain, electricity is an essential component of our provision of water and wastewater services throughout Northern Ireland,” he said.
Welcoming the news, Regional Development Minister, Danny Kennedy said the contract was good news for both the local economy and the environment.
“I want to congratulate local company GO Power for winning this significant contract. This contract will further deliver NI Water’s policy of being an environmentally friendly and responsible organisation.”
Although unusual in the North, the contract terms allow NI Water to use a portfolio approach to buying its electricity, buying different percentages of its load on different dates.
A common practice in Britain, it will allow NI Water to keep its electricity costs within budget by taking advantage of low prices or by avoiding high prices.
The contract is just one of over 300 goods and services contracts overseen by NI Water’s Operational Procurement team with a total annual spend of approximately £100m.
Approximately 55% of these goods and services contracts are awarded to local companies, with 100 % of contracts on NI Water’s capital works schemes allocated to local construction companies.
Source: ulsterherald.com
