National award for Sligo engineers
A group of Sligo based engineers were recent winners at national awards.
Jennings O’Donovan, the Sligo based consulting engineering firm, brought home the coveted Design Excellence Award for large Civil Engineering projects at the Association of Consulting Engineers of Ireland (ACEI) Annual Dinner on Friday night last.
The primary purpose of the ACEI awards is to give formal recognition to the work of consulting engineering firms large, medium and small, for projects that demonstrate an exceptional degree of achievement, value and design engineering excellence.
Jennings O’Donovan were the winner in the civil engineering large project category for their design work on the Meenadreen Extension Wind Farm.
Opened in June 2017, the new Meenadreen Wind Farm is Ireland’s largest ever Wind Farm. Located in south east Donegal and constructed at a cost of €145 million, Meenadreen alone can power up to 50,000 homes using wind energy which will reduce Irelands carbon dioxide emissions by up to 100,000 tonnes each year.
In commending the Jennings O’Donovan design for the excellence award, the panel of judges noted that “The Meenadreen Wind Farm is Ireland’s largest such facility and provides a critical and resilient link to the grid in the north west of Ireland. Located in an area of outstanding beauty in south east Donegal, it consists of 38 turbines, producing 98 MW of electricity. Considering the farm’s density and visibility it has been designed with great sensitivity to the environment and the local community”.
While Jennings O’Donovan had been shortlisted in previous years for their design input on projects, this is the first time that the award has been won by a company from the North West of Ireland. Speaking on behalf of the company the Project Director, David Kiely noted that he and his fellow business partner Conor McCarthy were extremely proud of the award which was a reflection, not only on the Meenadreen project, but on the many years of hard work and effort by all in the firm in building up and maintaining a culture of excellence on all projects on behalf of their many clients.