Bord na Móna 26-turbine plan to be next to Bracklyn wind farm

Bord na Móna has lodged a planning application seeking permission to develop the 26-turbine wind farm it first announced for the Delvin, Bracklyn area, and into County Meath, three years ago.

The new ‘Ballivor Wind Farm’ is to be adjacent to the nine-turbine Bracklyn wind farm given the go-ahead in July of 2022.

The turbines at the Ballivor Wind Farm are to be even taller than those at Bracklyn, having a hub height of 115m and a rotor diameter of 170m. The total blade tip height is to be 200m. The Bracklyn turbines are to have a total blade tip height of 185m.

The application by Bord Na Móna Powergen Limited is for a 10-year planning permission, with the intention that there be a 30-year operational life for the farm, which is set to cover the townlands of Lisclogher Great, Cockstown, Clonmorrill, Ballyhealy, Ballynaskeagh, Clonleame, Bracklyn, Craddanstown, Killagh, Grange More and Riverdale in County Westmeath and the townlands of Clondalee More, Derryconor, Clonycavan, Robinstown, Coolronan, Doolystown and Moyfeagher in County Meath.

Daryl Kennedy, spokesperson for the Delvin Raharney Ballivor Wind Action Group, said on Monday that if An Bord Pleanála approves the application, there will be a total of 35 wind turbines and two wind masts in the area, each with a red light at the top.

The group questions the point of erecting turbines in this area.

“These would be the tallest turbines in the country. And it’s mostly because the winds wouldn’t be as strong in this part of the country as they would be anywhere like the west Coast. Turbines have to go higher in such a flat landscape,” says Daryl.

Daryl says that the group also contends that despite being promoted as a “green” electricity source, wind farms come at quite a high ecological cost, and he described the Bord na Móna decision to use its lands for wind energy production was “unimaginative”.

“To put a wind farm of that size into the bog will require tens of thousands of tons of concrete,” he told the Westmeath Examiner.

“It will involve tens of kilometres of new access roads through the bog; tens of kilometres of cabling, significant amount of stainless steel. We don’t even know when or how long it will take for that type of wind farm to pay back in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, because concrete is a very significant emitter of greenhouse gas. So we imagine that after pouring all of that concrete, putting down all that cabling and roads. It’ll take many years to have a net benefit on the climate.”

According to Daryl, Bord na Móna did conduct some consultation sessions with the community early in 2020, pre-Covid. “We did write to them pointing out some alternatives that they could develop on those lands and we asked them many questions. But they came back with really like a PR company response: lots of fancy language but told us nothing.

“They were never really willing to listen to our concerns. And they certainly weren’t willing to discuss, you know, if, maybe, they could redesign the density of the wind farm; or if they could give us assurances about the proximity from houses. But they weren’t willing to discuss it at all.”

Approximately 2,000 people live in the catchment area, Daryl says, and community preferences were to have the land considered for other uses.

“Obviously Bord na Móna need to consider what to do with their considerable landbank given that they’ve moved away from peat production. But we would feel as a community, that they’re completely unimaginative in their response and have gone for what is essentially the easiest thing possible – development of a wind farm – because of the guaranteed income that it provides due to government incentives.

“They’re highly unimaginative: we would have loved to have seen things like commercial horticulture; perhaps even development of commercial garden centre with restaurants, maybe solar wind farms; maybe to produce biomass, which would be much more imaginative in terms of creating longer term jobs.”

Mr Kennedy went on to say that there is an “assumption” that wind farms are the answer to climate change.

“But we will believe that that’s far from the case. And as I said at the outset, we’re very concerned with climate change, just like everybody else should be. But we think that this particular development of 35 turbines, in addition to everything else going on – all the other wind farms going on across the country – is not the panacea for climate change that we’re being led to believe it is.”