Bord na Móna is proposing to develop a wind farm on bogs within the Ballivor Bog Group in counties Meath & Westmeath, namely Ballivor, Bracklin, Carranstown, Lisclogher and Lisclogher West bogs.  The proposed wind farm will be known as Ballivor Wind Farm.

Number of Turbines

The final layout comprises of 26 wind turbines. Apart from the turbines themselves, the other principal components of the wind farm are the foundations to support the turbine towers, access, crane hard standings, underground cables between the turbines, an on-site electricity substation and an electrical connection to the appropriate node on the National Grid.

Height of Turbines

The proposed turbines will have an overall blade tip height of up to 200 metres above ground level. Within this size envelope, various configurations of hub height and rotor diameter may be used. The exact make and model of the turbine will be dictated by a competitive tender process, post planning and it will not exceed the maximum tip height of 200 metres above ground level.

Setback Distance

The turbine layout has been designed with a minimum setback distance of 800m to the nearest house from a turbine. This complies with the Draft Wind Energy Development Guidelines (2019), which proposes a setback distance of 4 times the tip height.

Local Benefits

The development of the proposed Ballivor Wind Farm will support up to 100 jobs at peak construction and 3-5 long term, high quality technical jobs in operations and maintenance.

Local communities will also benefit from additional rates paid to the Local Authority which support the provision of local services, a community benefit scheme and the upgrading of road infrastructure where necessary in the local area.

Amenity

The proposed wind farm will consist of approximately 28km of internal road network, approximately 23.5kms of which is intended for amenity use when the wind farm becomes operational. An additional 4km (approx.) of local amenity links are also proposed to provide connectivity to local roads and allow local access to the wind farm amenity.

Submission of Planning

It is envisaged that a planning application will be submitted in early 2023 for the proposed project.