20-hectare solar farm proposed at Blackdown, Oldmilltown, Co. Kildare

In context

It is one of 23 solar farm applications Kildare County Council has received in the past twelve months, against 349 nationally. Of the 563 such applications decided by councils in the past three years, 92% were granted.

What happens next

The five-week window for public submissions has closed. The council normally decides within eight weeks of the application being lodged, unless it requests further information, which stops the clock.

The development description, as lodged

Verbatim from the Kildare County Council register. This is the source for every figure in the story above.

RED III will consist of an application for a 10-year planning permission for the construction of, and a 40-year operation and subsequent decommissioning of, a development consisting of a 20 hectare solar farm (red line boundary). The solar farm comprises of 1no. land parcel. The proposed solar farm will consist of a series of ground mounted solar photovoltaic (PV) panels, mounted on steel support structures and in some areas on concrete shoes to protect possible underground archaeological features, together with 5no. electrical transformation enclosures, underground cabling, 1no. temporary construction compound, the use of existing farm access tracks, existing site entrances, realignment of 1no. existing site entrance including realignment of the existing access track, inverters, CCTV poles and cameras, deer type security/boundary fencing, landscaping and biodiversity measures and all associated ancillary development works, for the purpose of generating renewable energy electricity and transmitting it in the townlands of Blackdown, Oldmilltown and Coolahocka, Co. Kildare.