By Andrew Bushe
DUBLIN — Ireland’s first offshore wind farm, involving up to 100 giant turbines generating enough power for 200,000 homes, is being proposed for the Kish Bank, about six miles off Dublin.
An Anglo-Irish consortium is seeking a special license from Marine Minister Michael Woods for the £200 million development and a feasibility study is getting under way to test the geology of the Bank and the power of wind speeds in the area.
The group, which includes the ESB, the UK PowerGen company and the Kerry-based Saorgus Energy wind power company, is looking at a site south of the Kish lighthouse for the farm.
Dr. Aidan Forde, Saorgus director, said the turbine towers would be about 60 meters high and the blades would be 30 meters long. One turbine would produce about 2.5 MW or enough to power about 2,500 electric fires.
He said the turbines would need strong foundations not only to withstand the wind but also to cope with the waves.
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The ESB’s project manager with the consortium, David O’Connor, said it was tried and tested technology.
"Here in Ireland we have a natural resource that is the envy of our European neighbors," O’Connor said. "The wind resources are about double what it is in Germany and Denmark. They are outstandingly good. Wind energy comes from a free source that is clean and inexhaustible."
Wind farms in similar kind of water depths were working successfully off Denmark for many years and they had plans to eventually produce up to 35 percent of their national demand from wind.
"Wind energy on prime sites like the Kish Bank is getting very, very close to being directly competitive head-on with the cheapest alternative which inevitably involves producing greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels ,which are themselves a finite resource," he said.