Oriel Wind Farm is a proposed offshore wind farm in the northwestern

Irish Sea The Irish Sea is a body of water that separates the islands of Ireland and Great Britain. It is linked to the Celtic Sea in the south by St George's Channel and to the Inner Seas off the West Coast of Scotland in the north by the North Ch ...

. The project is associated with Oriel Windfarm Limited, a privately owned Irish

renewable energy Renewable energy (also called green energy) is energy made from renewable resource, renewable natural resources that are replenished on a human lifetime, human timescale. The most widely used renewable energy types are solar energy, wind pow ...

company. According to a 2007 press release, the proposed farm is due to be located near Clogherhead, approximately southeast of

Dundalk Dundalk ( ; ) is the county town of County Louth, Ireland. The town is situated on the Castletown River, which flows into Dundalk Bay on the north-east coast of Ireland, and is halfway between Dublin and Belfast, close to and south of the bor ...

County Louth County Louth ( ; ) is a coastal Counties of Ireland, county in the Eastern and Midland Region of Republic of Ireland, Ireland, within the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster. Louth is bordered by the counties of County Meath, Meath to the ...

, and approximately northeast of

Drogheda Drogheda ( , ; , meaning "bridge at the ford") is an industrial and port town in County Louth on the east coast of Ireland, north of Dublin. It is located on the Dublin–Belfast corridor on the east coast of Ireland, mostly in County Louth ...

. The farm takes its name from the ancient

Kingdom of Oriel Kingdom commonly refers to: * A monarchic state or realm ruled by a king or queen. ** A monarchic chiefdom, represented or governed by a king or queen. * Kingdom (biology), a category in biological taxonomy Kingdom may also refer to: Arts and me ...

Environmental impact

Detailed surveys and studies of the physical,

ecological Ecology () is the natural science of the relationships among living organisms and their environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere levels. Ecology overlaps with the closely re ...

, and human environment at the proposed wind farm site have been carried out since 2003. These included

geotechnical Geotechnical engineering, also known as geotechnics, is the branch of civil engineering concerned with the engineering behavior of earth materials. It uses the principles of soil mechanics and rock mechanics to solve its engineering problems. I ...

assessments of the area and surveys of

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...

s flying above the site.

Construction

In 2007, the proposed developers suggested that if permission was obtained, "construction could commence as early as Autumn 2009". However, as of 2014, the project was on hold pending talks between the Irish and UK governments on exporting the electricity to the UK. In July 2015, the companies Oriel Windfarm and Gaelectric announced a proposed co-development of a 15MW demonstration project, to potentially include the development of a research and development hub for offshore energy. The two companies suggested that the project, termed the North Irish Sea Array, had the potential to produce 870MW of electricity.

Output

If completed as per the 2007 proposals, the wind farm would reportedly be capable of generating up to 330

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 ...

s of electricity. The generated electricity could be fed into the Irish national electrical grid, with some of the output exported via interconnector to the UK and European energy markets.

References

{{reflist Wind farms in the Republic of Ireland Offshore wind farms in the Irish Sea Proposed wind farms Proposed renewable energy power stations in the Republic of Ireland