€15.5 Million Wind Farm Opened In Co. Antrim
Gaelectric officially opened its £13.4 million (€15.5 Million) wind farm on Thursday, November 17, at Cloonty in Co. Antrim. The 9.2MW wind farm is located on the Castlecat Road between Derrykeighan and Bushmills.
Cloonty is renewable energy and energy storage group Gaelectric’s fouth operating wind farm in Northern Ireland. The Company has 184MW of operating wind farm projects on the island of Ireland across 10 projects, with a further five projects under construction.
Cloonty wind farm comprises four Enercon wind turbines, with a maximum blade tip height of 110 metres. It will generate sufficient green renewable power to meet the electricity demand of over 5000 homes on an annual basis. The project has created over 20 full time and part time jobs during its development and construction phase.
In the last four years, Gaelectric has secured planning approval for nine Northern Ireland wind farm developments. The company’s first operational wind farm in Northern Ireland, the £20 million 13.8MW Carn Hill wind farm located in Newtownabbey, Co Antrim was officially opened in May 2013.
Gaelectric is behind the Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) facility in Larne, Co. Antrim. The Larne CAES stores energy as compressed air in caverns specially engineered for this purpose within salt deposits located deep underground (1.4km-1.8km) at the northern end of the Islandmagee peninsula. The project will be capable of generating up to 330 MW of power for periods of between 6 and 8 hours, enough to meet the electricity needs of over 200,000 homes.
Established in 2004 and employing over 100 people, Gaelectric has offices in Belfast, Dublin, Manchester, Chicago, and Great Falls (Montana). The company currently employs 16 people in its Technical office based at Clarendon Dock in Belfast.
