SSE Renewables expands wind farm capacity with new project in offaly
SSE Renewables has bought a 29-turbine wind farm development in Offaly.
The shovel-ready, consented Yellow River Wind Farm project outside Rhode has a potential installed capacity of more than 100MW
It was bought from Green Wind Energy (Wexford) Ltd and was granted full planning consent in 2014.
SSE Renewables has started pre-construction work and expects to begin full construction of the wind farm in late 2020 with an expected project completion date in 2022.
It is expected to support up to 80 full-time construction jobs at peak delivery.
Once completed, the wind farm will be capable of generating enough green energy to power over 50,000 homes annually and offset more than 2 million tonnes of carbon dioxide over its expected 25-year lifetime.
Paul Cooley, Director of Capital Projects at SSE Renewables, said: “Ireland has always been a core market for SSE Renewables, where we are already the largest owner, operator and developer of renewable energy.
"Yellow River Wind Farm will contribute towards our ambition of developing and building enough renewable energy capacity to treble annual output of renewable electricity to 30TWh by 2030.”
SSE Renewables owns and operates 708MW of onshore wind capacity across the island with a pipeline of around 600MW of new onshore wind farms under development.
The firm is also developing Phase 2 of Arklow Bank Wind Park off County Wicklow which can generate up to 800MW and is also in the early stages of work on two new projects, the 800MW Braymore Point off the north-east and 800MW Celtic Sea array off the south-east.
