Ireland’s largest wind farm for 2013 come on stream

The Invis Energy’s 44.35MW capacity wind farm located at Knocknagoum in Co Kerry has begun generating electricity to Irish homes and businesses.

It is the largest wind farm to have been built in Ireland in 2013.

Located in the Stack’s Mountains, Knocknagoum consists of 26 Vestas [v52] turbines and is capable of producing enough clean renewable energy to power over 29,000 homes, saving 72,000 tonnes of CO2 per year.

Michael Murnane of Invis Energy, one of Ireland’s leading independent producers of electricity from onshore wind, said, “We are delighted that the first wind farm in our portfolio is now fully operational. It’s a terrific achievement to have built the largest wind farm in Ireland in the last year, given the growing activity in the Irish renewables sector.”

“The scale of our ambitions at Invis is clear. We completed project financing for our second wind farm in Connemara last July, which is expected to start operating in mid-2014; we also have a project pipeline of almost 300MW of generation capacity scheduled to be built in Ireland over the next two years, so we’re very much looking forward to making a tangible contribution to the local economy and to Ireland’s clean energy targets in the near future.”

Knocknagoum is one of two onshore wind farms in Invis Energy’s current portfolio. The second, Leitir Gungaid, is a 42.8MW project located on the Atlantic Coast in Galway, and which is due to become operational in mid-2014. The project will use 17 Enercon E82 turbines.

Together, Leitir Gungaid and Knocknagoum represent an investment of more than €160 million and, when both are operational, will provide enough clean renewable energy to supply 60,000 households and will save Ireland 145,000 tonnes of CO2 annually. Source: Business World