New wind farm proposals for Kildare

Proposals for a new wind farm for North West Kildare are in the pipeline.

Statkraft wants to build an 11 turbine facility at Drehid near Carbury, and has begun consultation with An Bord Pleanála. 

The company has dropped an information booklet into people's letterboxes over the past number of days.

This will be the third application in the same area over the past nine years. The first two applications - The Maighne Project and The North Kildare Windfarm were fought hard by the community and never made it to fruition.

The company has had two meetings with the planning board. The plans are for 11 169m high turbines at Ballynamullagh, Kilmurry, Coolree, Mulgeeth, and Drehid. The last meeting with the board was held in November 2023. 

The original plans were granted by the board after Statkraft appealed Kildare County Council's decision to refuse permission. This decision was subsequently quashed after a judicial review was taken to the High Court. 

Now, the company plan to submit a new application for the facility around 2km from Johnstownbridge and 4.8km from Carbury. The choice of turbine has been narrowed down to two choices, which will yield between 49.5 mega watts and 52.8 mega watts for the entire development. A substation and infrastructure is also included in the application. 

Following the meeting, the board asked for clarification from the company as to whether the application should be submitted to An Bord Pleanála or Kildare County Council.

If the output is below 50 mega watts, the board said it did not meet the criteria for a Strategic Infrastructure Development. Therefore, the plans would have to go to Kildare County Council.