Co. Clare, Ireland Hotel Earned €20,000 Selling Power from Hydroelectric Turbine to National Grid

Main Photo: The Falls Hotel, on the River Inagh

Date: April 2021

Location: Ennistymon, Co. Clare, Ireland

Name: The Falls Hotel

No. of Keys: 140

Owner: Mike McCarthy, owner of the Falls Hotel

What did he do: What to do when your hotel is closed down due to Covid 19? This enterprising hotelier found that he could earn €20,000 by selling power to the Irish national grid. The owner of the hotel in the Burren has installed a €1.3 million hydroelectric turbine to power its 140 rooms, nine self-catering apartments, leisure centre and spa.

As a result the owner, Mike McCarthy has received €20,000 through sales of its electricity to the national grid from March 2020 to January 2021.

Restrictions meant the hotel was not using up all the electricity generated by the hydroelectric turbine and could sell it on, resulting in income at a time when the hotel doors were shut. Typically, the hydroelectric turbine can power 70 per cent of the hotel’s electricity needs, and this reaches 100 per cent at points in the winter when the river is full. While The Falls Hotel currently sells excess electricity to the national grid, there are plans to install a battery unit to store that electricity for use by the hotel at a later date.

The turbine, powered by an adjacent waterfall beside the River Inagh, was built in the Czech Republic and put together by a contractor from Northern Ireland, which took two years to build.

A hydroelectric turbine has been a feature of the hotel since the 1960s when the previous owner constructed a small turbine for occasional electricity use. “When I was a child, we used to have to go up and rake it out: take the leaves to get an extra bit of energy,” McCarthy said.

“We’d pull a switch on the wall, it’d switch over to the turbine and you’d see the lights flickering, whereas now when the turbine runs or it runs low you don’t even know it’s running. Nothing gets affected,” he said.

The hotel, located in the Burren and Cliffs of Moher Unesco Global Geopark, was last week awarded carbon-neutral status by the Green Hospitality Programme, an environmental certification and consultancy group.

McCarthy said owners of other high-profile hotels had been to visit The Falls Hotel’s hydroelectric turbine with a view to building similar water-powered electricity generators on their properties.

THPT Comment: What an enterprising hotelier…keeping the green flag waving and make a few bob at the same time, without any guests!

First Seen: Business Post

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