Energy business SSE Renewables says it could begin supplying electricity from a wind farm in the Irish Sea in 2029 as it prepares to seek the go-ahead from planners for the project.
SSE Renewables, part of the same group that owns electricity and gas supplier SSE Airtricity, plans to build a wind farm off the Wicklow coast that it estimates could provide power to 850,000 homes while cutting carbon dioxide emissions by more than 800,000 metric tonnes a year.
The company intends to apply to An Bord Pleanála this week for permission to build the Arklow Bank 2 wind farm, its flagship Irish offshore project, which will have the capacity to generate up to 800 mega watts of electricity.
“Subject to planning consent and a final investment decision by SSE, construction of Arklow Bank 2 could commence as early as 2026 with first energy generated by 2029,” the company said in a statement.
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The wind farm will have 56 turbines located on a 63sq km area in and around the Arklow Bank, off the coast of counties Wicklow and Wexford. It will include two offshore substations and undersea cables needed to connect the turbines to the national grid at a proposed landfall at Johnstown North, close to Arklow town in Co Wicklow.
SSE Renewables has already secured permission for an operations and maintenance base at Arklow Harbour as well as the substation and onshore cables needed to connect the offshore plant to the national electricity grid.
The application for the wind farm itself marks the third and last planning permission needed for the project to go ahead. The project has a separate Maritime Area Consent since 2022.
John O’Hara, SSE Renewables’ Arklow Bank project director, said the company was submitting what it believed was a “robust” planning application for a wind farm using the latest offshore technology.
He said the project already had substantial public support from communities in south Wicklow and north Wexford.
SSE Renewables’ project will contribute to Government climate action aims “while bringing enormous national and regional socioeconomic benefits such as up to €800 million economic investment”, Mr O’Hara said.
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