A planning application was narrowly accepted on Tuesday 25th May 2010, agreeing to the construction of a new small scale wind farm at Wear Point in Pembrokeshire. There was only one vote between acceptance or dismissal according to the Milford & West Wales Mercury.
The vote, taken by the Planning and Rigths of Way Committee, was in support by nine votes to eight. Votes against the new small scale wind farm appear to be based mainly on aesthetic grounds, the Mayor councillor is quoted as saying “I personally find them visibly appalling and I question their efficiency” in an earlier piece in the Mercury.
Brownfield Site at Wear Point
The site, which is an industrial area owned by SemLogistics, an oil storage company, was a former oil refinery. Infinergy state that SemLogistics support the development as being a positive force for job creation and investment in the area, as well as being good for the environment, on their Wear Point Wind Farm website.
The small scale farm will consist of four wind turbines, each with a maximum generating capacity of 2.5 megawatts. Chimnies already on the site are approximately as tall as the planned turbines. Earlier plans included higher structures, but the size was reduced to limit the visual impact of the structures, which measure 70 meters from base to hub with a total maximum height of 105m.
Castle Pill Wind Farm
Infinergy have already constructed a on shore wind farm at Castle Pill, which comprises of 3 turbines. They hosted guided tours of the Castle Pill wind farm for local residents as part of their local consultation activities, including a naming competition for local school children, in which they chose names for the turbines.
Climate Change Act and Wales
The Welsh Assembly Government states in their Advice Note 8 that they were committed to delivering 800MW of onshore wind electricity by 2010. “Wind Energy in Wales - State of the Industry” published by BWEA Cymru in July 2009 states Wales is missing this target by 82%, with brownfield sites such as Wear Point being expected to provide 25MW of the overall target for on shore renewable wind energy.
Production and Savings
The power expected to be produced by the site will be enough to serve over 5500 homes with renewable energy yearly. This should save emissions of between 7700 and 23000 tonnes of CO2 for each year of the plant's expected 25 year lifetime.
Louise Hampson - Louise studied English at Cambridge, before taking a Post graduate Certificate in Education. She worked as a secondary school and 6th Form ...
