RES has submitted a planning application for a new 16.8MW wind farm in Northern Ireland.
The proposed site for the four-turbine development is located in County Londonderry, on lands west of the existing Dunbeg Wind Farm and north of the Dunbeg South Wind Farm. The Dunbeg South Wind Farm, a 37.8MW project also owned by RES, secured planning consent in December 2020, with consent to increase the turbine rotor size granted in January 2024. The Dunbeg Wind Farm has been operational since 2014 and has a capacity of 42MW.
The full planning application for the Dunbeg South Extension Wind Farm has now been submitted to Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council, and is expected to be decided in the next few months. If consented, the project will take around 18 months to build.
David McVeigh, development project manager for RES, said: “Every megawatt of clean energy counts just now as Northern Ireland faces the challenge of meeting its target of 80% of electricity consumption to be generated from renewable sources by 2030. It is expected that 65% of this will need to come from onshore wind, one of the cheapest forms of new electricity generation.”
Irish renewables sector grows, but is it enough?
Ireland’s aforementioned climate bill target of sourcing 80% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030 is a crucial step towards decarbonising the Emerald Isle, but its feasibility has been called into question.
Ireland has been seeing recent successes in this arena; data from Irish grid operator EirGrid showed that renewable sources provided 40.4% of Ireland’s total electricity demand in October, most of which came from wind farms. In October, 35% of Ireland’s electricity demand was met by wind power, with total wind generation over the month reaching 1,003GWh. In the longer term, almost half (45.8%) of Northern Ireland’s electricity came from renewables between July 2023 and June 2024. Ireland’s wind sector has been growing thanks to recent developments and energisations, including Energia’s 49MW Drumlins Park wind farm, with the Irish wind sector marking its third-best July on record this year.
Despite this, some analysts feel that Ireland’s clean energy targets are no longer reachable. Energy market consultancy Cornwall Insight has forecast that Ireland will miss its 2030 80% target, suggesting that only 70% of Irish electricity will come from renewables by 2030. Gas plants will fulfil the majority of the remaining demand.
