Galway County Council has prepared a draft Wind Energy Strategy (WES) for the County and is proposing to incorporate this as an appendix to the Galway County Development Plan 2009-2015. Variation No.2 of the County Development Plan has been published to facilitate this and is currently available for public inspection.
The WES sets out a number of policies and objectives that seek to encourage wind energy developments at appropriate locations and to guide the location and design of new proposals. It seeks to capitalise on the substantial wind resource in much of the County area, whilst avoiding significant adverse environmental impacts, including on ecology, landscape and amenities.
The WES identifies strategic areas for wind energy development and areas where such development is acceptable in principle. These are primarily based on a number of key factors, including the available wind resource, access to grid, environmental/ecological designations and population/settlement patterns. The WES also designates areas where wind energy development proposals may be open to consideration or are not normally permitted, as well as areas where the wind resource is inadequate to support wind energy. The WES includes a wind energy production target for the County of 500MW by 2020.
The WES includes a landscape capacity assessment for wind farms, based on identified landscape character areas throughout the County. In addition, detailed Development Management Guidelines are included that should guide potential developers and will be used by the planning authority in assessing new proposals.
The statutory procedure for the Development Plan Variation No.2 provides for public consultation at this stage, prior to its adoption by the elected members of the Council. Public submissions can now be made on the draft WES before the deadline of Tuesday 7th June 2011.