First wind turbine completed in Mountlucas

It marks a significant milestone for the Bord na Móna development

Bord na Móna’s wind energy development of Mountlucas wind farm reached a significant milestone on Monday 3rd February with the completed erection of the first wind turbine on the Co Offaly wind farm.

The work has been underway since January following the arrival of turbine components on site over the past month.

The Mountlucas turbines represent the latest generation of wind energy technology and will generate 80 megawatts of electricity for the Irish market. The entire wind farm when operational will generate enough clean, safe and renewable energy to supply 45,000 homes in Ireland.

Bord na Móna’s Head of Powergen, John Reilly, said; “Today marks an important day on the Mountlucas wind farm with the completion of the erection of the first of the wind turbines, we are delighted to confirm that we are on schedule to meet our targets for 2014.

This marks an important milestone and means we are now on the cusp of actually generating renewable wind power in appropriate places like Mountlucas that can no longer be used for peat extraction.

We’ve done this working with Offaly Co Council, a number of excellent Irish construction teams and professionals, and most of all with the local community here in the area.”

The project has created over one hundred and fifty jobs during construction and will sustain a further 12 long-term jobs when it becomes operational later this year.