History

Developed by County Durham based company the Banks Group, the farm was planned as the largest wind farm in North East England

North East England

North East England is one of the nine official regions of England. It covers Northumberland, County Durham, Tyne and Wear, and Teesside . The only cities in the region are Durham, Newcastle upon Tyne and Sunderland...

. Construction of the farm began on the 11 July 2008. It was hoped that the commissioning of the turbines would make County Durham the first English county to hit its 2010 renewable energies target. The farm was commissioned in May 2009. In 2009 it was purchased by the Electricity Supply Board

Electricity Supply Board

The Electricity Supply Board , is a semi-state electricity company in Ireland. While historically a monopoly, the ESB now operates as a commercial semi-state concern in a liberalised and competitive market...

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Design and specification

The wind farm has a nameplate capacity of 24MW, containing twelve Repower MM82 turbines

Wind turbine

A wind turbine is a device that converts kinetic energy from the wind into mechanical energy. If the mechanical energy is used to produce electricity, the device may be called a wind generator or wind charger. If the mechanical energy is used to drive machinery, such as for grinding grain or...

each rated at 2MW. It was the first wind farm containing turbines supported on driven steel tubular piles.