Favourable reaction to Milford Haven wind farm (From Western Telegraph)

Favourable reaction to Milford Haven wind farm

3:40pm Sunday 28th June 2009 in

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Castle Pill wind farm was officially opened last week, with more than 100 members of the public given the chance to get a close-up of the turbines rotating at almost full tilt in 25mph winds.

“Everybody had very favourable comments about the quietness of the machines and the grace of them actually,” said farmer, Keith Knight, who owns the land.

“On the open day they were running well and producing enough energy for all of the houses you can see from up here, so I was very pleased.”

The three 76-metre tall turbines use industry leading technology which eliminates the need for a gearbox, making them some of the quietest in the country.

Like many, John Collier, from Haverfordwest, was surprised at the lack of noise: “We are standing right next to it and we still can’t really hear it. I thought there would be some swooshing and swirling, but there is no noise at all.”

Leslie Edwards and her husband Keith live in Steynton, where they can see the new turbines from their kitchen window.

“I think they are lovely. We have no objections to them at all, but you will always have a number of people who are dead against everything,” said Leslie.

The turbines – named Spinny, Hurricane and Aero by Neyland Community School – have a combined capacity of 2.7 megawatts, enough for around 1,500 homes.

They were constructed by wind farm developers, Infinergy, whose Welsh base is the Technium Centre, Pembroke Dock. Infinergy now plans to build four slightly taller turbines on Wear Point, near the Semlogistics oil depot.

Project manager, Lorraine Dallmeier, said the company had received a lot of interest from local landowners, but she said the company would not consider developing on land in the National Park.