By Gordon Deegan

An ESB subsidiary has lodged plans with An Coimisiún Pleanála to decommission and remove the 70-turbine Derrybrien windfarm in South Galway.

The application by Gort Windfarms Ltd comes more than three years after the ESB decided to shut down the Derrybrien wind farm on a permanent basis in March 2022.

The ESB made the move after the then-An Bord Pleanala ruling rendered the development unauthorised.

The State had amassed EU fines for €17m as a result of an ongoing failure to ensure proper standards were adhered to at the development at Derrybrien. The fines ceased in early 2022 after the windfarm was switched off which complied with a European Court of Justice judgment.

The windfarm is located in the Slieve Aughty Mountains and lies 12.7 km north northeast of Gort.

Last August, Galway County Council served a planning enforcement notice on Gort Windfarms Ltd directing the company to cease and discontinue the unauthorised use and unauthorised development.

The Enforcement notice warned the company that if it did not comply with the Enforcement Notice, Gort Windfarms Ltd may be guilty of an offence.

The company has now lodged two separate applications with ACP – one to decommission the turbines, masts, electrical plant, overhead lines and the second application seeking the retention of the ground structures to remain in situ.

A planning report drawn up for the ESB on the decommissioning project states that “if the decommissioning works do not proceed, the structures associated with the wind farm, substations and overhead line, would deteriorate over time, rendering the site unsafe and posing serious risks – both to human health and to the local environment”.

On the need for the project, the planning report states that the project arises because of the need to comply with the Council enforcement notice; regularise the planning status of the development and safely complete decommissioning of this unauthorised development.

The planning report states that it is the intention to remove ‘key elements’ of the wind farm, the 70 turbines.

The report states that subject to the granting of a separate Substitute Consent application with ACP, the company proposes that the features of the wind farm that to be left in-situ after decommissioning works are completed are the reinforced concrete foundations for 70 wind turbines, approximately 17.5km of access tracks and other ground works.

It further states that the duration of the decommissioning phase is expected to be approximately two years – and that, on completion of all of the works, the site will be largely free of above ground structures.

As part of the public consultation for the new application, the firm staged a public information event attended by 55 to 60 people.

The report stages that one of the issues raised at the event “was dissatisfaction with the proposal to decommission the wind farm, particularly in light of the need for additional renewable electricity generation capacity and the perception of it as an important asset”.

In October 2003, a peat slide event during excavation work for the wind farm occurred where 450,000 tonnes of peat were disturbed over an area of 25 hectares and resulted in the mass movement of 250,000 tonnes of material downslope.

Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI) told the appeals board that investigations after the peat slide indicated that around 50,000 fish mortalities occurred in a 18km stretch of river down to Lough Cutra.

A spokeswoman for the ESB wouldn’t be drawn on the costs of the decommissioning.

Confirming that the plans have been lodged with ACP, the spokeswoman said: “ESB have no further comment to make until the outcome of the planning application is known.”

Pictured: Derrybrien…to be decommissioned.