Dean & Dyball has started construction work on south west England's largest wind farm project, at Goonhilly on the Lizard Peninsula in Cornwall.
The contractor installed the first of six new Vestas V80 2MW turbines to replace the 14 existing models on Friday.
The project will enable the whole of the Lizard peninsula to meet 100% of its domestic electricity supply from local wind power.
Neil Harris, CEO of Cornwall Light and Power, the developer behind the project, said: “This repower is expected to triple the electricity generated at the former First World War airship station. Output is forecast to average 29.2 gigawatt hours per year, compared to an annual domestic electricity consumption of 27 gigawatt hours across the whole of the Lizard.”
The £12m project will make Goonhilly, one of the very first wind farms in the UK when it was commissioned in 1993, the most powerful wind farm in Cornwall and the south west.
Harris said: “Once in full production, Goonhilly is forecast to power around 5,500 homes with carbon-free green electricity from wind and save over 12,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide CO2 a year.”
Construction is expected to be completed this autumn.
Sign up to our FREE email newsletters or subscribe to our RSS feed for regular updates on the latest construction news, construction tenders, construction data, and construction law.
Got a story? Email news@theconstructionindex.co.uk
