Developing a Community Wind Farm

Donna Luckman • 20 May 2020

Wind farm development is the set of all activities that are required to take a bare site and turn it into a working wind farm. It's an enormous job but the articles below break building a wind farm down into steps with handy how-to articles and some reference material.

Wind farm development starts with identifying a site. Then you have to investigate it to check that there are no major issues that would rule development out — like endangered species or a lack of suitable electricity grid connection options. If it looks like a good site, it's time to monitor the wind speed to see if turbines will generate enough energy to form a business case for building a wind farm at your proposed location.

If the wind resource is good and the financial numbers stack up, it's time to put together a planning application to the relevant authority, which involves a lot of detailed assessment of various site aspects, and plenty of community engagement. Once development approval is awarded, it's time to negotiate purchasing turbines and selling your power. The final step is to actually build a wind farm, including connecting it to the electrical grid.

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