Geophysical survey to begin at Irish offshore wind project

An offshore geophysical survey campaign will soon start at the Arklow Bank Wind Park Phase 2 located off the Wicklow coast in the Irish Sea.

The goal of the survey is to provide site investigation information to facilitate the development of the Arklow Bank Wind Park.

Work is anticipated to start at the end of August and be completed by the end of October.

The survey activities will be undertaken by the vessels Roman Rebel, which will be operating 24 hours, and Lady Kathleen, which will be operating twelve hours per day.

A few days ago, Fugro completed fieldwork on a geotechnical site investigation for SSE Renewables’ offshore wind project.

The Arklow Bank Wind Park Phase 2 is located 6 to 13 kilometres off the coast of Arklow in County Wicklow and would be Ireland’s second offshore wind farm. SSE Renewables is also the developer of the country’s only offshore wind farm, Arklow Bank 1.

The company was recently granted planning permission to develop the onshore grid infrastructure necessary to connect the project to Ireland’s electricity transmission grid, a first for Ireland’s offshore wind sector.

Due to Ireland’s new consenting regime, SSE Renewables plans to commission the Arklow Bank Wind Park Phase 2 in 2028 and not in 2025 as initially planned.

Transferring Arklow Bank Wind Park Phase 2 to the MAP process allowed the developer to revise the project and substantially increase the power generation output from the site from 520 MW to 800 MW, according to the company.

The revised project will now be capable of powering almost 850,000 homes each year, almost double the number of homes targeted by the initial iteration of the project.

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