Industry leading technology brings natural gas closer to Kilroot

Owned and operated by Mutual Energy, the pipeline supplies gas to customers in the Greater Belfast area. Mutual Energy carried out works on the pipeline to connect Kilroot to the natural gas network, while ensuring gas continued to flow to homes and businesses without disruption.

Mutual Energy teamed up with the STATS Group, a leading industry provider of leak-tight pipeline isolation services, to install a bypass pipeline and allow works on the connection to proceed. STATS BISEP® technology uses hydraulically activated dual seals to provide leak- tight isolation of live, pressurised pipelines, allowing gas to continue to flow to customers while engineers carried out the connection works.

It is the first time the technology has been used in this way on a UK onshore gas transmission pipeline, and Marcus McFarlane, Mutual Energy, is delighted with the progress the project has made. “We have been working closely with Kilroot to deliver a connection to the Belfast Gas Transmission Pipeline, allowing flexible gas generation to complement the widespread use of renewable energy on the electricity system in Northern Ireland,” explains Marcus.

“By partnering with STATS, we were able to carefully manage the works to ensure we could connect Kilroot to natural gas, with no disruption to existing Northern Ireland natural gas customers. The connection to bring Kilroot onto the Belfast Gas Transmission Pipeline is now substantially completed, enabling the power station to transition away from coal.”