Meentycat wind farm is a

wind farm A wind farm, also called a wind park or wind power plant, is a group of wind turbines in the same location used to produce electricity. Wind farms vary in size from a small number of turbines to several hundred wind turbines covering an exten ...

located north of

Ballybofey Ballybofey ( , ; ) is a town located on the south bank of the River Finn (County Donegal), River Finn, County Donegal, Ireland. Together with the smaller town of Stranorlar on the north side of the River Finn (County Donegal), River Finn, the ...

County Donegal County Donegal ( ; ) is a Counties of Ireland, county of the Republic of Ireland. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Ulster and is the northernmost county of Ireland. The county mostly borders Northern Ireland, sharing only a small b ...

, Ireland. Erected in 2004, it was Ireland's largest wind farm when it opened in 2005. Originally owned by

Airtricity SSE Airtricity (previously Eirtricity) is an energy company founded in Ireland in 1997, and now a subsidiary SSE plc. SSE Airtricity supplies and distributes electricity and gas to Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. History The comp ...

(later SSE Airtricity), as of 2020 it was run by SSE Renewables.

Turbines

Located near Ballybofey in County Donegal, the wind farm has 38

Siemens Wind Power Siemens AG ( ) is a German Multinational corporation, multinational technology Conglomerate (company), conglomerate. It is focused on Industrial control system, industrial automation, Building automation , building automation, rail transport a ...

wind turbine A wind turbine is a device that wind power, converts the kinetic energy of wind into electrical energy. , hundreds of thousands of list of most powerful wind turbines, large turbines, in installations known as wind farms, were generating over ...

s. These 23×2.3

megawatt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of Power (physics), power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantification (science), quantify the rate of Work ...

and 15×1.3 megawatt turbines give a total of 72.4 megawatts. With these 38 turbines, spread over five sites, Meentycat wind farm generates enough electricity to power the equivalent of approximately 45,000 homes a year, with CO₂ savings approaching 200,000 tonnes per year. Power from the turbines is transmitted to the national grid via a 110kV substation located at Meentycat, a 5km 110kV overhead line and a 110kV substation at Drumkeen to the east of the wind farm. As of 2009, it was the largest wind farm (by

electricity Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter possessing an electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described by Maxwel ...

generated) in Ireland. It is now owned by SSE Renewables, part of

SSE plc SSE plc (formerly Scottish and Southern Energy plc) is a multinational energy company headquartered in Perth, Scotland. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange, and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. SSE operates in the United Kingdom a ...

References

Wind farms in the Republic of Ireland Buildings and structures in County Donegal {{wind-farm-stub