Blue Horizon calls for Waterford wind turbine free zone

Blue Horizon – a community group of stakeholders – is calling for all offshore wind projects to located at 22 km from the Waterford coastline.  This would follow the EU approach where the average ‘bottom fixed’ site is 59km from shore in an average water depth of 33 metres.

Blue Horizon  says ‘yes’ to offshore wind  but ‘no’ to nearshore wind, and is calling  for a 22km wind turbine free zone of the Waterford coast in alignment with ‘EU best practices to protect biodiversity, the local fishing economy, the stunning seascapes and the tourism industry’.

The Waterford coast has several Special Areas of Conservation and Special Protection Areas under EU law, along with the Copper Coast UNESCO Geopark.

Some of the largest offshore wind farms ‘on the planet’ are planned for the Waterford coast, according to Blue Horizon.

These include: SSE Celtic Sea (25km); ESB Equinor, Helvick (10km); DP Energy, Inis Ealga (8.5km); Energia, Helvick Head (5km).

EU versus Waterford

Offshore wind farm size is calculated using Megawatts (MW) – the amount of power produced. All of the permanent EU wind farms inside 22km are at last eight years old and the emphasis is now on granting sites further offshore.

Wind farms over 209 MW are placed at least 23km from shore while the proposed Waterford sites are between 600-1,000 MW.