ESB Wind Development Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Irish utility company ESB, has applied for a licence to carry out site investigations for its Sea Stacks Offshore Wind project, one of the projects on which the company was joined by Equinor, before the Norwegian developer decided to withdraw from offshore wind development in Ireland last month.
ESB has applied for a foreshore licence to perform geotechnical and geophysical site investigations, and metocean survey to gather further information on seabed and sub-seabed conditions, geotechnical data for site characterisation of the sub-seabed, and accurate wind and metocean information.
The company will also carry out surveys to obtain baseline information on the environmental conditions at the site, including marine ecology, bird, mammals and benthos, and will also investigate archaeological conditions at the site.
The activities are required to inform the overall project feasibility, conditions at the wind farm site and along the cable routes, and the development of the project.
The Sea Stacks Offshore Wind site is located to the east of County Dublin, at a distance of approximately 12 kilometres from shore and in close proximity to RWE’s Dublin Array project sites and Codling 1, the consented site of the 1 GW Codling Wind Park being developed by a joint venture between Fred. Olsen Renewables and EDF Renewables.