Arklow wind farm safe from grid ban say Airtricity

January 2004

THE START-UP of the world’s largest offshore wind farm at Arklow will not be delayed by the shock ESB decision top ban further connections to the national grid.

The temporary ban on additional wind energy being fed into the national grid was introduced by the ESB in the past month and will remain in situ for at least three months.

Co-developed by GE Wind Energy and Airtricity, the first seven of the 200 wind turbines that will eventually make up the Arklow bank project have already been put in place.

They have still to be hooked into the national electricity supply.

However, a spokesperson for Airtricity, Ms Majella Walsh, said that the start-up of these turbines will not be affected by the ESB decision as connection for this demonstration phase of the project had been secured before the ban came into place.

It is expected that the seven turbines will be unlocked in the early part of this year and start producing electricity.

In regard to the remainder of the Arklow offshore wind farm project, Ms Walsh said that they expected this matter to be resolved before the next phase of the windfarm project comes into play.

‘And there fore we do not see the ban as being a major problem for us,’ she said. The ban on linking into the national grid has been lambasted as ‘ridiculous’ by Airtricity.