Irish green energy company Biotricity has said its new €40m biomass plant in Rhode, Co Offaly, will create 200 construction jobs, with another 65 involved in operating the plant. Taoiseach Brian Cowen was at the announcement this evening.
The company's new 15 megawatt combined heat and power (CHP) biomass facility will be powered by the supply of willow grown by Irish farmers. Biotricity says the plant will generate enough energy to meet the energy requirements of 5,000 homes. It will also produce 120,000 tonnes of processed biofuel for the commercial energy market.
The Biotricity plant is beside the old ESB power station that was decommissioned in 2002. Construction will start early next year, and the plant will be running by the middle of 2012.
Meanwhile, computer manufacturer Hewlett Packard is creating 120 high-technology, multilingual jobs at its enterprise division in Dublin.
50 of the jobs are available immediately. The other 70 depend on whether Ireland is able to come up with the qualified individuals to fill them. The candidates need language skills, like French, German and Italian.
HeyStaks secures €1m in funding
An Irish social web-search start-up company, HeyStaks, is aiming to increase its staff numbers to over 40 by the end of 2013.
It has secured €1m in equity funding from the Ulster Bank Diageo Venture Fund, which is managed by NCB Ventures. This money will be used to develop its product offering, increase its workforce and open a new office in San Francisco.
The company currently employs four people and aims to increase staff numbers to 14 by the end of the year, before hitting its target of over 40 by 2013.
Based in NovaUCD centre, the company was set up in 2007 and is a spin-out from the Science Foundation Ireland funding Clarity Centre. It gives users community-enhanced search results that more more personalised and relevant than conventional search engine results.
Just Mobile to create 25 new jobs
A new pre-paid mobile network launches today. Just Mobile is creating 25 jobs now, and up to 70 over the next two years. One cent a minute of each call is donated to the user's charity of choice. So far 40 charities have signed up to the network.
