Lenalea windpower facility
SSE Renewables
The Lenalea windpower facility is located in the rural upland setting of central Donegal, around 8km southwest of Letterkenny. The project secured planning permission in January 2010 but was unable to progress due to the lack of access to the electricity grid. Construction was completed in August 2023.
[1]
The Lenalea windpower facility consists of seven Vestas V117-4.3 MW turbines, each with a tip height of 136m (446ft). The blades are 57m (187ft) long, and the hub height of each turbine is 76m (249ft). The turbine tower comes in three parts and are bolted together as they are erected. Each wind turbine has a swept area of 10,751 square metres (1.08 hectares, 2.66 acres).
Five of the seven bases use gravity bases, with a diameter of 20m (66ft), have a depth of 2m (6.6ft), use 70 tonnes (170,113 pounds) of steel reinforcement, and use 450m² (538 square yards) of concrete.
[2]
The other two use piles to support the turbine foundations, consisting of 18 piles of 900mm (3ft) diameter, 9m to 18m (29.5-59ft) deep.
[3]Part of the new substation
A new substation was built on site to connect to a 110KV powerline. A new 6km road was built through the site to service the wind farm, using stone quarried from the site. The infrastructure is built on the site first, before erecting the turbines. This includes the roads, cables and bases. Once the bases are complete, they run all the cabling between the bases to the substation. The turbines are erected using a 96m hook height crane on a purpose-built hardstand.
[4]A nacelle, which houses the drive train, including the gearbox and generator, as well as the transformer, and to which the blade assembly is attached, being delivered to the site
[The amount of collection lines from each turbine to the substation and new transmission lines from the substation to the grid was not reported.]
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/documents/lenalea-windpower-facility/
URLs in this post:
[1] Image: https://docs.wind-watch.org/Lenalea.jpg
[2] Image: https://docs.wind-watch.org/Lenalea-base.jpg
[3] Image: https://docs.wind-watch.org/Lenalea-substation.jpg
[4] Image: https://docs.wind-watch.org/Lenalea-nacelle.jpg