Wind farm scheme set to benefit Barrow (From The Westmorland Gazette)

Wind farm scheme set to benefit Barrow

3:37pm Monday 18th January 2010 in

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BARROW is hoping to benefit from a new offshore wind energy farm which is set to be built nearby and could lead to new jobs.

A consortium will develop up to five gigawatts of electricity at their development in the Irish Sea, and the Associated British Ports’ (ABP) Port of Barrow believes the decision could prove profitable for the area, with industry players basing themselves in the town.

According to ABP, Bar-row is ideally situated to support the consortium and offshore wind develop-ments in the Irish Sea, and discussions are taking place with a large number of industry players in a bid to bring them to the up-and-coming corner of Cumbria.

Nick Ridehalgh, port director for Short Sea Ports, said: “Barrow is in a fantastic position to serve some of the biggest developments in the Irish Sea zone and ABP is working to make sure the big names base themselves here.”

The port of Barrow is already home to the Barrow Offshore Windfarm Operations and Maintenance Base, and ABP Barrow has also handled the construction of the substations for the Barrow and Robin Rigg offshore wind farms.

It is working with its customer Dong Energy to handle 100 foundations for the Walney windfarm during 2010 and 2011, and later this year the port will be the site for the construc-tion of the substation for Vattenfall’s Ormonde off-shore wind-farm.