Gael Force - Resources

Pre-Construction Stage

The links below are more focused on the information available when seriously considering a wind farm project. They cover some information on turbine manufacturers, financial incentives for wind, national and county specific development plans, planning and development regulations and freely accessible interactive maps on the environment and land registration.

World Turbine Manufacturers - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wind_turbine_manufacturers

Renewable Energy Feed in Tariff (REFIT)
REFIT was set up as the support mechanisms available for electricity from renewable sources in Ireland. REFIT 1, 2 and 3 documentation and updates can be found on the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources website.

National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS)

The NPWS fall under the Dept. of the Environment, Community and Local Government and are one of the main bodies consulted by the planning authorities when a wind farm has been submitted for planning permission.

They are responsible for site designation of:

Special Areas of Conservation (SAC)
Special Protection Areas (SPA)
Natural Heritage Areas (NHA)

Within their website they have free access to a map viewer that can identify SACs, SPAs, NHAs and other areas of interest with an interactive map of Ireland.

The Property Registration Authority of Ireland (PRAI)

The PRAI provides a comprehensive and secure system of land registration and can be used to access folio numbers, site areas, burdens and ownership. In 2011, the PRAI have launched a new free map viewer (by proceeding as Guest) on their website that allows any member of the public to identify folio numbers, site areas, site boundaries, number of plans and burdens for free. They have also set up a simple credit card payment system to access copies of the registered folio.

County Development Plan

All county council offices have individual county development plans in place that are updated with minor/major amendments on an annual basis. These documents contain important information on the requirements in a given county with respect to planning application requirements and procedures. For example:

Kerry Cork Donegal

In addition, some counties have specific Renewable Energy Strategies. For example, as part of their 2009-2015 County Development Plan, Kerry Co. Co. had a variation resulting in a separate Renewable Energy Strategy. As per the latest version of the County Development Plan 2015-2021, this Renewable Energy Strategy is due an update following an update of the National wind energy guidelines to be issued by the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government.

Irish Planning and Development Regulations

There have been several revisions and amendments of the Irish Planning and Development regulations in the last decade and these changes impact on how wind energy development should be carried out.

The Department of Environment, Community and Local Government contains a full list of the Regulations revisions and amendments.

The Irish Statute Book website contains both PDF and webpage versions of the Planning and Development Regulation documents to facilitate searching the documents.