A new report has found that Belfast Harbour, the site in which 81-acre Harland & Wolff (Belfast) site is located, is the only port on the island of Ireland capable of supporting large fixed and floating wind projects.
The study produced by Gavin & Doherty Geosolutions and published by Wind Energy Ireland (WEI), deemed that Belfast Harbour is the only one out of 13 major ports on the island of Ireland that is ready to be used for constructing offshore wind farms.
This is the most detailed analysis ever carried out of port readiness for scaled-up development of offshore renewable energy.
The report follows the recent government increase to offshore wind targets taking the number up to 7 gigawatts by 2030. To ensure success, enhanced ports and harbours with deep sea berths and extensive quaysides capacity – like those at Harland & Wolff – will be required to cater for large turbine components and large-scale offshore installations. Harland & Wolff (Belfast) is particularly poised to benefit from this with two of the largest drydocks in Europe, substantially large loadout, storage and fabrication spaces and a track record in delivering renewables projects such as transformer platform and jackets for Bard 1, Ormond Offshore and EA1 wind farms.
Published on the opening day of WEI’s annual offshore conference the report goes on to analyse existing available port and harbour infrastructure as well as their plans for expansion to cater to offshore wind.
The ports and harbours examined were Belfast D1; Harland & Wolff (Belfast), Bremore in north Dublin, Cork Dockyard, Foynes Island, Galway, Killybegs in Co Donegal, Larne in Co Antrim, Moneypoint in Co Clare, Port of Cork (Ringaskiddy), Ros an Mhíl in Co Galway, Rosslare Europort and Shannon-Foynes.