Construction starts on Cavan wind farm

Mountain Lodge Wind Farm the site for 19 wind turbines

ESB recently announced the commencement of construction of a new €45 million wind farm at Mountain Lodge, Co. Cavan. The project is being developed by its Hibernian Wind Power subsidiary in conjunction with its local partner Galetech.

19 wind turbines supplied by General Electric will be installed on the farmland site. On completion, which is scheduled mid 2008, the facility will generate in excess of 28 megawatts of electricity to the National Grid. This output will be sufficient to supply the energy needs of 28,000 homes. The Mountain Lodge site is adjacent to an existing wind farm.

Commenting on the new development, ESB Chief Executive Padraig McManus said, "This significant investment in clean technology represents ESB's continuing commitment to renewable energy sources. This adds to ESB growing portfolio of investments in wind farm technology and now brings our total generating capacity from the source in excess of 100 megawatts. The development is also commensurate with the renewable energy objectives set out in the recently published Green Paper on Energy.

Together with Galetech, we will be working very closely with the local community to ensure minimum disruption and inconvenience during the facility's construction." The National Grid currently has around 500 megawatts of wind generation on the system, with more than 1000 megawatts due for connection over the coming years. Hibernian Wind successfully completed a 12 megawatt windfarm at Carnsore Point in County Wexford and the 70 megawatt windfarm at Derrybrien in Co Galway.

The Government has set a target of 30 per cent of electricity generation from renewable sources by 2020.

ESB International