Tursillagh
The Tursillagh project was initiated in 1993 when agreement was made with Coillte Teo to purchase the site. A bid for a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) under the first round of the Alternative Energy Requirement (AER1) was made in 1994 but was unsuccessful.
The site, which is approx. 60 Ha in size, was subsequently entered in AER3 where it was successful in obtaining a 15 year PPA for a 15MW (megawatt) wind farm.
Construction of the 23-turbine windfarm started in November 1999 and was completed in late August 2000. The main contractors were:
- Civil Engineering: Coillte
- Electrical Engineering: ESBI
- Turbine supply: Vestas
- Project Management: Wind Prospect Ltd.
The turbines are the Vestas V47 model which, in a strong breeze, are each capable of producing enough electricity to supply almost 700 electric fires. The turbine towers are made of tubular steel and are 50m tall. The blades are made of glass-reinforced plastic and are each 23.5m long. A 250 tonne crane erects the turbines in four lifts; bottom tower section (20t), top tower section (20t), nacelle (box on top carrying gearbox and generator, 20t) and finally the hub with three blades attached (10t). The pictures on this page show the erection of the turbines in August 2000.
The connection of the wind farm to the electricity network is via an underground 38kV cable which runs along the local roads to a 38/110 kV ESB substation on the northern edge of Tralee.
Tursillagh supplies 50,000,000 units of electricity per year to the ESB network. This electricity is sold on by ESB to be used throughout Kerry in homes, streets and industry. This amount of power is equivalent to fully supplying half of Kerry's homes for as long as the wind blows over Tursillagh. If you live in Kerry and it's windy outside, the chances are that the electricity powering your computer right now comes from the wind at Tursillagh.
Reducing harmful emissions to the air
The Tursillagh Wind Farm project would have positive effects on global and local climate change because of the effect of reducing harmful emissions to the air from fossil fuel power plants. The following figures show the amounts of electricity that will be generated by Tursillagh and the amounts of air pollution that would be avoided by its operation (based on figures from Renewable Energy Information Office):
50,000,000 units of electricity
40,000,000 Kg of CO2
500,000 Kg of SOx
166,650 Kg of NOx
2,750,000 Kg of ash and slag - that's over 2,500 tonnes!
These are significant savings and result in very positive environmental effects. As an illustration, a car will travel approx. 2 km per kg of CO2 emitted (Greenpeace). This gives a saving of the equivalent of approx. 80,000,000 km driven in terms of CO2 saving from the Tursillagh Wind Farm. At an average of 16,000 km per car per year, this gives the equivalent of taking 5,000 cars off the road! This shows the very significant avoidance of carbon emissions that can be achieved through the operation of large wind energy projects. Based on the figures above, the effects of not proceeding with this project or of reducing the number of turbines would be the emission of approx. 3 million kg of CO2 per turbine per year. In public health terms, the continued reliance on fossil fuel generation will inevitably have negative effects on the health of Irish people who live beside these power stations. As an example, Harvard School of Public Health in Boston (Levy et al 2000), have calculated exposures to residents living in New England, eastern New York and New Jersey from fossil fuel plants. Their report estimated that current emissions can be linked to more than 43,000 asthma attacks and nearly 300,000 incidents of upper respiratory symptoms per year in the region. The study also estimated that 159 premature deaths per year could be attributed to this pollution. Wind energy will be a key in fighting these kinds of effects in Ireland where we are over-reliant on fossil fuels for electricity generation.
Recent visit of Probis to Tursillagh
The Probis Retirement Group from Tralee recently visited the Wind Farm. The members were interested to learn about the project would have positive effects on global and local climate change because of the effect of reducing harmful emissions to the air from fossil fuel power plants.
Recent visit of Mannix Community School from Charleville
The Mannix Community School from Charleville visited the Wind Farm recently and reported that they were impressed with the size of the turbines, the amount of power that is produced and how quiet the turbines are. If your school is interested in visiting the wind farm, please send us an e-mail.
