Overview
From 2017 to date, Entrust Services has delivered a complete planning and environmental service for Soleire, for one of the largest renewable energy clusters of multiple renewable energy technologies in the country, consisting of Monaincha Solar Farm at 350 acres co-located with an existing windfarm, Derrymore Solar Farm at 143 acres, Erkina Solar Farm at 72 acres and Brehonys Bog Solar Farm at 84 acres.
The Renewable Energy Hub also consists of a 5,000 sq.m. Battery Energy Storage System (BESS), a Strategic Infrastructure Development consisting of a 110kV Loop In Substation together with 2.2KM of overhead lines to connect the renewable energy hub to the national grid (TSO), which required the felling of commercial forestry, and a number of 38kV underground interconnectors, including one by way of HDD underneath the M7 Motorway.
Objective
We were the appointed planning project manager and planning consultant with responsibility for delivering planning permission and all related planning application documentation for all the individual renewable energy projects listed above. As part of this service we delivered the feasibility studies, public consultation with the local community, pre-application consultation with the Planning Authority and other public bodies, we produced a suite of environmental reports including landscape and visual impact assessment, ecology reports, GIS services, layout and design and production of planning application
drawings. A key aspect of our consultation with the local community and Planning Authority was the use of technology by way of 3D modelling and ZTV’s to assess potential cumulative impacts and visual impacts on surrounding sensitive receptors. When potential impacts were identified we proposed landscape enhancements such as vegetation screening to reduce impacts to an acceptable degree.
Background
We were the appointed planning project manager and planning consultant with responsibility for delivering planning permission and all related planning application documentation for all the individual renewable energy projects listed above. As part of this service we delivered the feasibility studies, public consultation with the local community, pre-application consultation with the Planning Authority and other public bodies, we produced a suite of environmental reports including landscape and visual impact assessment, ecology reports, GIS services, layout and design and production of planning application
drawings. A key aspect of our consultation with the local community and Planning Authority was the use of technology by way of 3D modelling and ZTV’s to assess potential cumulative impacts and visual impacts on surrounding sensitive receptors. When potential impacts were identified we proposed landscape enhancements such as vegetation screening to reduce impacts to an acceptable degree.
Challenges
We navigated the planning and legal complexities of renewable energy infrastructure to deliver each proposal successfully by providing a solution focused approach throughout the entire consenting process.
We used our own in-house built technology to overcome planning issues such as creating drive by videos and 3D models of each proposal to depict the predicted visual impact and the predicted glint and glare impacts to share with the Planning Authority and local community for analysis and commentary on a consultative basis during the pre-application stage of different projects before designs were finalised.
An example of this was when we overcame an objection by TII, due to the potential glint and glare impacts on lorry drivers on the adjacent M7 Motorway. We created videos of a lorry driver travelling in both directions along the motorway combined with proposed landscaping mitigation to prevent any glint and glare spillage onto the motorway by way of an earthen bund with trees to be planted on top to help screen the proposal from the motorway.
Solutions
This major renewable energy hub will consist of approximately 220MW of renewable electricity when built which will play an important role in helping to decarbonise our electricity system and will displace harmful imported fossil fuels, thus reducing approximately 105,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions each year and powering approximately 37,000 average Irish homes. Under the Government’s Renewable Energy Support Scheme (RESS), the local community will benefit from a generous local community fund for the lifetime of the project so that those residents that live close to it will benefit the most from it.
Results
Altogether Entrust Services delivered this highly complex and major renewable energy infrastructure project very successfully which consisted of a Strategic Infrastructure Development (SID) application for connection to the national grid (TSO), 10 planning applications related to the solar farms, amendments to their designs and several interconnectors, 3 appeals and 5 Declarations of Exempt Development Applications (Section 5) for a number of underground grid interconnectors.
