Bord Pleanala decision expected today on Aran wind-farm plan

An Bord Pleanala is expected to deliver its decision today on a controversial wind-farm proposal for Inishmaan, one of the Aran Islands. The ruling will be seen as a precedent for the fledgling wind-power industry.

The wind-farm, which is being proposed by Inishmaan Co-op and supported by Galway Energy Agency Ltd, a company set up by Galway Corporation, is seeking to have planning permission for three wind turbines with a capacity of 675 kilowatts upheld.

The co-op also proposes to use the power for a desalination plant to provide fresh water for the island.

Opposition has come from Friends of the Irish Environment (FIE) and other groups, and individuals including the author, cartographer and environmentalist Mr Tim Robinson. The environmentalist and broadcaster Mr Eamon de Buitlear has appealed to the co-op to reconsider its plans, but is not a party to the Bord Pleanala appeal.

Mr Tony Lowes of FIE said opposition centred on the impact of the wind-farm on the landscape. "It is a unique landscape. It should be preserved. It doesn't matter if you can't see the windfarm from down in a hollow. It will be there and it will have destroyed the amenity," he said.

The Inishmaan wind-farm is just one of several announced by separate developers in recent months. However, The Irish Times has established that the total number of such projects for which licence applications have been made to the Commission on Electricity Regulation is just four.

They are in Cork, Kerry and Donegal and have a total capacity of about 15 megawatts.

This represents a total of about 100 megawatts, a minuscule proportion of the State's current requirement of about 4,500 megawatts.

But Mr Eddie O'Connor, chairman of the Irish Wind Energy Association, has claimed that existing wind-energy companies could be producing 20 per cent of the State's requirement by the year 2010.

The current requirement is 4,500 megawatts, which would suggest that more than 2,000 average-sized wind-turbines would be needed to deliver the 20 per cent quota. "Quite apart from what it would look like, the country would probably lift off if it had that many blades," quipped one source. Mr O'Connor also said that the recently founded wind-power company, Eirtricity, of which he is managing director, would be very disappointed if it was not producing far in excess of 80 to 100 megawatts by the end of this year. By then, he insisted, Eirtricity would have plants in operation in Cavan, Kerry and Donegal.

Mr O'Connor said his firm had started building one plant in Donegal and another was being commissioned. He initially said he had planning permission for "our own site" (Donegal), but later amended this to, "It doesn't exactly matter whether we have full planning permission", as it would take six months to order the turbines.