North Steads Wind Farm

North Steads Wind Farm
North Steads Wind Farm
	North Steads Wind Farm from Druridge Bay
Country	England
Location	Widdrington, Northumberland
Coordinates	55°15′58″N 1°37′05″W / 55.266°N 1.618°W
Status	Operational
Construction began	August 2015
Commission date	29 June 2016
Owner(s)	Ventient Energy
Wind farm
Type	Onshore
Site usage	Forestry, farmland
Hub height	260 feet (80 m)
Rotor diameter	302 feet (92 m)
Site elevation	98 feet (30 m)
Power generation
Units operational	9 x 2.05 mw
Make and model	Senvion MM92
Nameplate capacity	18.45 megawatts
External links
Website	Official website
	[edit on Wikidata]

North Steads Wind Farm is an onshore electricity generating site west of Widdrington in Northumberland, England. The site was developed on old coal opencast workings and has nine turbines delivering over 18 megawatts of power per year.

History

Consent for the wind farm was granted in 2012,^[1] though construction of the site did not start until August 2015, one month after Infinis (later renamed as Ventient Energy) acquired the site from Peel Energy.^[2]^[3] The original planning permission sought was for 13 units, but this was reduced to nine operational units at North Steads, as four already existed at another site nearby called Sisters Wind Farm.^{[note 1]}^[5] The site was commissioned in June 2016,^[6] with the name North Steads Wind Farm, after the local community campaigned for the name to be changed from Blue Sky Forest, which Peel Energy developed the site as.^[5] North Steads was developed on the former coal opencasting site of Maiden Hall and Steadsburn,^[7] half of which had ceased coaling operations in 2006,^[8] though the 170-acre (69-hectare) Steadsburn site was still blasting rock in 2009.^[4]

The site consists of nine turbines, each with a rating of just over 2 megawatts, and at a height of 260 feet (80 m). The length of each blade is 148 feet (45 m) with an overall diameter of 302 feet (92 m). ^{[note 2]} The output of the site is rated as 18.45 megawatts, which is enough to power over 11,700 homes annually.^[10]

Six of the turbines are surrounded by woodland (North Steads Plantation), and the three southernmost, are on arable land. The site averages about 98 feet (30 m) above sea level, and is bounded to the east by Steads Burn.^[10]^[11]

Notes

^ The former opencast coalmining venture on the site was known as Sisters, from where the name came for the wind farm.^[4]
^ This equates to the total height of the turbine blades reaching 410 feet (125 m).^[9]