Peel Energy’s 57 MW Cheshire Wind Farm Approved

October 24th, 2012 by Nicholas Brown

The United Kingdom’s Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has approved the construction of 19 wind turbines at a wind farm in Cheshire, which is a county in North West England.

The wind farm is to be constructed for Peel Energy near Frodsham, and it has an electricity generation capacity of 57 MW (57,000 kW). As such, it has the capacity to power up to 25,000 homes in the town and in neighboring Helsby and Elton.

Wind farm in East Somerton, England.

A community trust fund is also to be established to help fund projects in the area.

As for the other two, but very important purposes that wind farms serve: The DECC said that this wind farm would create 50 new construction jobs and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 50,000 tonnes annually.

For those that don’t already know, the generation capacity of a power plant, especially a wind farm, is the maximum amount of electricity that it is capable of generating, but not necessarily how much it generates on average.

The amount of electricity a wind farm generates on average is dependent on how high the average wind speeds in the location are, and wind speed consistency is also helpful.

The capacity factor for wind farms has been improving considerably in recent years, and the average is now around 50%. Of course, the cost of wind power is affected by other factors as well, such as the cost of the turbines used and the installation cost. Labour costs can vary quite a bit between countries and even within countries.

Source: BusinessGreen
Photo Credit: shirokazan (some rights reserved)

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Tags: Cheshire wind energy, Cheshire wind project, renewable energy uk, renewable energy United Kingdom, UK, UK Clean Energy, UK Renewable Energy, wind energy United Kingdom, wind power uk, wind uk

About the Author

Nicholas Brown writes on CleanTechnica, Gas2, Kleef&Co, and Green Building Elements. He has a keen interest in physics-intensive topics such as electricity generation, refrigeration and air conditioning technology, energy storage, and geography. His website is: Kompulsa.com.