The Green Isle is Super Green!

As mentioned last night, I wanted to highlight my favorite showcase from ecomagination. As a person proud of his Irish heritage, I admit my favorite is the Arklow wind power plant.

I take even further pride, despite the fact that I, nor my family, had nothing to do with the project, because my grandfather hails from Arklow. Beyond my own affinity for the area and the island, I am a firm believer in wind energy, for its cleanliness and renewable nature.

Unlike the United States, where wind power faces great opposition from the general public and the utility companies, Europe is making significant strides in alternate clean energy. The Irish Sea of the coast of Arklow was chosen for several reasons, first and foremost, it had high wind levels. In fact, after four years of monitoring, it was determined to be one of the windiest locales in Europe. The shallow waters also offered a strong foundation for construction and reduced the impact on the surrounding environment.

The project was co-developed by GE and Airtricity, a European wind energy company. They operate a number of facilities throughout the British Isles. The Arklow Bank operates seven 3.6MW turbines, the largest commercial wind engines.

Since 2004, Seven massive turbines each weighs 320 tons and stands over 30 stories tall. The diameter of the rotors spans 340 feet, greater than the length of a football field. Since their inception, the massive turbines have operated 94% of the time, with the only forced outage due to a ship's anchor straying and severing an underwater cable, and powered 16,0000 homes annually (according to Airtricity.)

While not all the data is in, such as the total impact on the environment, the Arklow project seems to be successful, profitable, and thriving. And the exciting fact, this is only Phase 1.

Imagine what these innovative Irishmen can do for Phase 2!!

24 days, 24 runs...