Three factors
have directed the design of the windfarm:
- Environmental
Impact Assessment
- Public Consultation
- Engineering
Constraints
Environmental
Impact Assessment
Environmental
Impact Assessment (EIA) is a detailed process by which environmental
information about a project is collected, evaluated, and taken into
account in its design. Information on the project and its environmental
effects are then reported within an Environmental Statement (ES)
and the ES is used by the planning authority and other interested
parties to assess the project.
The EIA for
Maerdy Windfarm has taken 18 months to conduct and has covered ten
specialist disciplines: planning policy, landscape, noise, TV, ecology,
hydrology, geology, archaeology, traffic and socio-economics. The
EIA was undertaken by Entec UK Ltd, one of the UK’s leading
environmental consultancies and supported by several other specialist
consultants.
An important
part of the EIA is consultation, both to agree the scope of the
ES to be submitted and to understand the existing environmental
conditions that apply in the area. Organisations consulted included
Rhondda Cynon Taf Council, CCW, Environment Agency, Cadw, MOD, RSPB
and others.
Examples of
how the project is designed to minimise any impact include avoiding
areas of sensitive habitat, crossing streams at established crossings,
positioning turbines to avoid them being directly behind each other,
etc. Below is a link to the environmental constraints plan used
to design the windfarm layout.
Public
Consultation
REP conducted
a public consultation on preliminary proposals for a windfarm at
Maerdy in the winter of 2005/6. Apart from providing information
to the public on the proposals, the aim was to receive comments
to inform the windfarm design and improve the development work.
Comments were
requested on all aspects of the proposals including the layout of
the windfarm. Two indicative layouts were presented: 12 smaller
or 8 larger turbines and visualisations of the indicative windfarm
were presented in over 250 views around the area.
The consultation
was based around a website: www.maerdywindfarm.co.uk advertised
through over 10 000 door to door leaflets and newspaper adverts.
Four public meetings were also held and articles published in the
local press.
1 300 visits
were made to the project website and 27 written comments received,
all of which were personally replied to and reported in full to
the planning authority. The comments received have been incorporated
into the EIA and have also influenced the final project layout.
A layout of 8 turbines, as opposed to 12 has been selected, influenced
by public comments.
Engineering
Constraints
As
well as the above the project has to be designed to satisfy seperation
criteria for the turbines from slopes, each other and forest, as
well as many other engineering constraints.
