The operator of a wind farm have been ordered to pay €950,000 by early next month towards the estimated €2.3 million legal costs of a couple who won their legal action over its operations.
Mr Justice Oisín Quinn made the order in the High Court on Friday arising from his judgment this month in favour of Raymond Byrne and Lorna Moorhead.
The judge ruled the couple were entitled to orders fully shutting down three of the six turbines at the Gibbett Hill Wind Farm near Bunclody, Co Wexford, and to €360,000 damages, including €60,000 aggravated damages, over the turbines’ adverse impact on them.
ABO Energy Ireland Ltd and ABO Energy O&M Ireland Ltd, operators of the wind farm, along with its owner, Wexwind Ltd, all with a registered address at Cornelscourt, Dublin, indicated they intended to appeal over the orders for full shutdown of the three turbines. The appeal must be filed by early July.
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On Friday, the judge directed the operator to pay out €950,000 within 14 days towards the couple’s legal costs.
The court previously heard from John Rogers SC, for the couple, that the full costs bill was about €2.3 million.
If there is no agreement on the final costs bill, it will go for adjudication before a legal costs adjudicator.
The three turbines, which are located about 1km from the couple’s home, have been shut down and the damages are expected to be paid shortly.
In proceedings initiated seven years ago, the couple claimed the defendants wrongfully caused or permitted noise, vibration and shadow flicker to be emitted from the wind farm. It is claimed this caused, and continues to cause them, stress, anxiety and sleep disturbance, and “destroyed” the use and enjoyment of their property and devalued it.
The defendants had contested the claims, but, last March, on the 11th day of the hearing, they admitted liability in relation to the claims of nuisance and switched off the turbines from 10pm to 7am daily.
At the end of the six-week case on April 4th, the defendants apologised for the nuisance and said they would also switch off the turbines from 7am to 11am at weekends and public holidays, pay damages for nuisance to date and into the future and would address shadow flicker.
In his judgment, Mr Justice Quinn said the plaintiffs’ expert evidence was that the nuisance was “one of the worst cases of wind farm noise impact” while the defence expert said it was “an outlier”.
The defendants had failed to engage “in any meaningful way” with the “genuine and substantive” complaints made by the couple over 12 years since the turbines began operating in 2013, he said.
That “seriously unimpressive” approach represented a threat to the goal of developing wind farms and wind energy here, he said. Addressing wind turbine noise in a substantial way was “critical” to the future success of wind as a major source of renewable energy.
