Ireland’s state-owned electricity corporation has set up a partnership to develop 400-MW of new onshore wind-power generation capacity in Scotland and England.
ESB – which translates from Gaelic as the Irish Electricity Board – is now working with Coriolis Energy on the first of these new generating assets – with plans for a massive 91 megawatt windfarm in Scotland.
ESB has kicked off a scoping process for the farm in southern Scotland, which would have 19 turbines that are each 175m tall.
Pat O’Doherty, ESB chief executive, explained: “Our partnership with Coriolis Energy strengthens ESB’s commitment to the expansion of its onshore wind portfolio in the UK market.
“The partnership has a significant pipeline of development projects with a projected capacity of up to 400 MW across nine projects.
“This will potentially translate into an overall capital investment of approximately £600 million.
The generation output would be sufficient to power 225,000 homes with the first project planned to be operational by 2019.
“The majority of projects within the portfolio are located in Scotland but opportunities for new windfarm developments will be pursued throughout the UK.”
ESB is also looking to develop projects in solar, waste-to-energy, biomass and offshore wind among other areas.
David Murray, Managing Director, Coriolis Energy said: “ESB’s scale, capabilities and desire to build a substantial onshore wind portfolio in the UK make them an ideal long term partner, both for us and our project landowners.
“We look forward to successfully completing the development of our existing project pipeline with them and using this as a platform for progressing further opportunities as the market continues to develop.”
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