Groudle Bay has emerged as the preferred landfall option for the Mooir Vannin offshore windfarm following a significant technical reassessment by the developer and Manx Utilities.
The site was initially removed from consideration due to the excessive length of the onshore cable route needed to connect to the originally preferred Lord Street substation in Douglas.
Dr Julian Carolan, speaking on behalf of the applicant, explained how the decision was revisited.
“This was due to the excessive length of the terrestrial export cable corridor required if landfall was made at Groudle, and that is specifically in relation to a grid connection being at Lord Street,” he said.
The turning point came when Manx Utilities identified a new connection point at Pulrose capable of handling larger capacity.
Potential
The potential island connection would carry only a fraction of the wind farm’s total output.
The primary purpose of the 1.4 gigawatt project is to export electricity to the UK, with between 60 and 100 megawatts potentially coming ashore for Manx use, subject to ongoing technical discussions.
Steve McGee, interconnector manager for Manx Utilities, said that the preference for Groudle was reached following a joint evaluation.
The work considered “operational resilience, route diversity and protection of the existing interconnector infrastructure, constructability, available landfall working room, and also environmental sensitivity and long term adaptability,” he said.
Mr McGee added that Groudle Bay “scored strongly across all these categories, particularly in avoiding conflict with our existing offshore and onshore assets and enabling a more future proof cable route inland”.
By contrast, Port Skillion presented “higher risks for existing infrastructure, including constrained emergency access and limited space for future expansion”.