Project Evolution

How this project has evolved over time 

At the initial stages of consideration, designers drafted a project outline that would maximise the wind energy potential of the site. Placing local appropriateness as a fundamental consideration, further optimisation of this design was carried out. Following feedback received during initial community engagement, distance to houses, number of turbines, shadow flicker and noise were also considered. It was found that it was possible to increase the distances to houses, reduce turbine numbers further and improve the general performance levels of the proposed wind farm by increasing the tip height by 35m.

Following our recent community engagement, further optimisation of this design was carried out. As with all our projects, local appropriateness is a fundamental consideration and the Grand Canal Way historical and recreational importance was foremost in nearly every engagement.

We have redesigned the project and increased the setback distance from the canal to the nearest turbine from 123 meters to 506 meters, an increase of 437 meters. Our design team have also optimised our turbine layout by reducing the number of turbines from 10 to 7. Despite this reduction, we are still able to achieve an output exceeding 50MW. The type of turbines selected remains unchanged, and the tip height is maintained at 185 meters.

The proposed project includes sections of Coillte property in addition to other third-party lands. If you have any queries related to Coillte, please contact lsinfo@coillte.ie

The design changes are set out in the following table: