Wind farms do their part to combat the climate emergency

One of our priorities here at NRW is to move Wales toward greener, more sustainable energy and recently we’ve been celebrating the success of several wind farm projects on our land.

It all started as an exercise carried out by Forestry Commission Wales in 2005 and since then we’ve helped construct wind farms at Pen y Cymoedd, Brechfa Forest West and Clocaenog Forest.

 

We partnered with 2 multi-national developers, Vattenfall and innogy, to build these green energy sources which can now power nearly 300,000 homes annually.

 

By powering these homes with renewable energy, we can save 14 Million tonnes of CO2 emissions from entering the atmosphere over the lifetime of the projects.  

 

£3M was also allocated to peat bog restoration and habitat management to offset the environmental effects of the Vatenfall construction and both projects will be contributing an estimated £75M into local communities over the lifetime of the projects.

 

These green energy projects not only benefit the surrounding economies but will also produce over £250M of income over their lifetime for ourselves and for Welsh Government through royalty payments through electricity generation.

 

Moving Wales towards green renewable energy sources is crucial in the fight against climate change.

 

It is a real success story that not only contributes to Welsh Government renewable energy targets but hits our SMNR and well-being goals as well.

 

Two further large scale onshore windfarms on NRW land are in the pipeline. The Alwen project based in North Wales and Y Bryn project which will be built in South Wales.

 

Our teams continue to facilitate these projects having activated the team’s Business Continuity Plan while working from home.