Update December 2019

Since our last update in July 2019, the erection of the 5 turbines went smoothly and the windfarm was ready for energisation at the beginning of August. However, the delay in energisation of ESB 110kv substation at Ardnagappary continued until late August, almost 4 weeks delayed. As soon as Ardnagappary was energised, the windfarm substation became energised on the 28th August 2019. Vestas, by the use of generators, were able to start commissioning turbines and, after the transformer at the windfarm site had ‘soaked’ for a week, Gweedore Wind Farm (GWF) started to export electricity on the 8th of September. However, due to unexplained circumstances GWF only became registered in SEMO on the 23rd October.

The commissioning went relatively smoothly. As expected, there were a few minor issues along the way, but by early December the windfarm was taken over and has now gone into full operational mode. So the windfarm came in on time and pretty much on budget, even though any contingency was fully utilised due to some unforeseen costs.

On Tuesday the 5th November 2019, the Gweedore Wind Farm received a visit from the Ambassador of Denmark, Uffe A. Balslev. Mr Balslev had expressed a wish to see a Vesta windfarm and as the Cronalaght site had the oldest Vestas wind turbines in the Republic of Ireland and also now the most recently installed, it was an obvious choice.

The Directors of Gweedore Wind Farm would like to thank all of the local population for their patience and understanding particularly during the construction of the cable route and the transport of the turbine parts to site. We would also like to thank all of our teams who worked on the project.