Introduction

In 2008, RWE npower renewables was awarded the rights to seek planning permission to develop a wind farm in Clocaenog Forest in North Wales.

The woodland is managed by Forestry Commission Wales on behalf of the Welsh Assembly Government.

Clocaenog Forest is located within one of seven areas (called Strategic Search Areas) set aside for the development of large-scale wind farms. These areas were specifically identified as suitable for such development within the Welsh Assembly Government’s planning guidance Technical Advice Note 8 (TAN8).

What’s happened so far?

Since 2008, RWE npower renewables has undertaken an extensive range of detailed studies, including environmental and technical assessments. These help us to determine what kind of wind farm could be proposed for this site.

We continue to work closely with a wide range of consultees, including the Welsh Assembly Government, Denbighshire County Council and Conwy County Borough Council, The Countryside Council for Wales and The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. We formally introduced ourselves to the local community in the Wind Power News newsletter and invited representatives of the local communities and regular users of the forest to join the Community Liaison Group.

In October 2009, we shared our draft proposals with the public at exhibitions in 4 venues near to the site, Over 6,000 newsletters were distributed to local homes and organisations, advertising the exhibitions.

Layout

We are currently proposing that the Clocaenog Forest wind farm would include 32 wind turbines, each with an individual installed capacity of between 2 and 3 megawatts (MW).

The layout of the wind farm could therefore be as follows, although the final layout could be liable to change as a result of forthcoming formal consultation (see Public Consultation section).

The wind farm’s total installed capacity would be between 64 and 96 MW, equivalent to the energy needs of up to 42,100 homes (see note).

The consent process

As the total electrical capacity of the proposed wind farm would be above 50MW, we will now be making an application for Development Consent to the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC).

The IPC is a new, independent body which will be responsible for determining applications for ‘Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects’ (NSIPs). It was created through the Planning Act 2008 and will be accepting applications from 1st March 2010.

The IPC is based in Bristol, and intends to simplify the planning process, making the process more fair, and has pledged to make independent judgements about applications. The development process under IPC also formally places an emphasis on developers like ourselves to take responsibility for consultation (see "Public Consultation").

For more information about the IPC, visit the website.

Note
(1) These predictions are specific to the site of RWE npower renewables’ proposed Clocaenog Forest Wind Farm.
Energy predicted to be generated by the proposal is derived using wind speeds monitored in the local area and correlating to a Met. Office station providing longer term data. This enables a calculation to be made to estimate the average annual energy production for the site based on 32 turbines each of rated capacity 2.5 MW. The energy capture predicted and hence derived homes equivalent figures may change as further data are gathered. Equivalent homes supplied is based on an annual electricity consumption per home of 4700 kWh, which is derived from a total UK domestic electricity consumption of 117.589 terawatt-hours (TWh) (The Digest of UK Energy Statistics 2005) and 25.2 million UK households (Mid-year Household Estimates published in 2004 by the Office for National Statistics).