Historic Moneypoint Shutdown Propels Ireland Into Europe’s Coal-Free Elite

One of Ireland’s biggest polluters just shut down for good. Moneypoint, the massive coal-burning power plant that dominated County Clare‘s skyline for four decades, finally called it quits on June 20, 2025. Ireland just joined the coal-free club—the 15th European country to ditch the dirty stuff entirely. This milestone makes Ireland the sixth European country to completely eliminate coal from its electricity mix.

The timing? Earlier than expected. ESB and EirGrid had originally planned to keep the lights on through the end of 2025, but apparently someone decided to pull the plug ahead of schedule. Can’t say we’re complaining.

Someone decided to pull the plug ahead of schedule. Can’t say we’re complaining.

Built in the mid-1980s after the oil crises scared everyone straight, Moneypoint pumped out 915 megawatts at its peak. For context, that’s enough juice to power roughly 600,000 homes. The plant served as Ireland’s energy security blanket, complete with its own deep-water port and beefy grid connections.

Now those same connections will pipe in clean energy instead. Funny how that works.

The transformation already started years ago. Wind power went from a measly 1% of Ireland’s electricity in 2000 to 37% by 2024. That’s 11.4 terawatt-hours of clean energy, folks. Solar’s catching up too, hitting 0.97 TWh last year. Not bad for a country not exactly known for its sunshine.

Moneypoint isn’t totally dead yet. It’ll hang around on standby, ready to fire up on heavy fuel oil if the grid throws a tantrum. This backup role continues until 2029, because apparently you can’t just flip a switch on energy security. Environmental groups like Friends of the Earth want ESB to use that oil backup as little as humanly possible.

ESB’s throwing serious money at the site’s makeover. Their Green Atlantic@Moneypoint project includes offshore wind, energy storage, and even hydrogen production. Australia’s success reaching 40% renewable generation in 2024 provides a promising model for Ireland’s own energy transition.

They’ve already installed Ireland’s first synchronous compensator—a €50 million gadget that helps renewables play nice with the grid.

The deep-water port that once welcomed coal ships? Soon it’ll service wind turbines instead. The transmission lines that carried dirty power? They’ll carry clean electricity.

The site that symbolized Ireland’s fossil fuel dependence is becoming ground zero for its renewable transformation.

Sometimes irony comes with a multi-billion-euro price tag.