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Progress at power station after storm damage - owners

Clodagh Rice
BBC News NI business correspondent
PA Media The picture shows five chimney stacks at a power station, one of which is leaning at an angle.PA Media
A chimney stack was damaged at Ballylumford power station in December

The company which owns Ballylumford power station in County Antrim has said "significant progress" has been made following the damage caused by Storm Darragh in December.

A chimney stack which was damaged has now been partially dismantled and made safe, with plans in place to rebuild the stack, allowing generation to be restored.

The company said it recognised that the storm resulted in the loss of generation and the ongoing need to minimise any disruption to electricity supply.

EPUKI NI operations director Craig Atkin said: "A huge amount of work has been completed in the last three months to bring us closer to achieving the return of generating capacity from the impacted unit."

He added: ''While the Ballylumford site is currently back operating at 60% overall capacity, subject to continued progress, we are planning for further generation at the site to be available from mid-April."

It comes after the company which operates Northern Ireland's electricity grid, System Operator NI, said the storm damage meant three of six large generating units in Northern Ireland had been "forced into extended outage".

EPUKI acquired Ballylumford Power Station in June 2019.