Bids were opened for the Moyle Equivalent Energy Auction on Thursday 29 November 2001. The auction allocated the energy equivalent of 125 MW of capacity under contract to Northern Ireland Electricity (NIE) as a result of the construction of the electricity interconnector with Scotland. As this energy is surplus to NIE’s needs to serve its franchise customer base for the year April 2002-March 2003, the energy was made available for sale by auction, for resale by suppliers.
The auction was fully subscribed with all capacity being sold to two successful bidders, Energia (a separately licenced affiliate of NIE) and ESB.
Also underway at present is the auction of capacity on the Moyle (Scotland – Northern Ireland) and North-South (NI - RoI) interconnectors, to be available from 1 April 2002. Details of this process may be obtained from the System Operator Northern Ireland (SONI) website at http://www.soni.ltd.uk.