A new wind farm 30 miles to the east of Derry in Northern Ireland, which was fully commissioned last month, has been acquired by London-based investment company Greencoat UK Wind (UKW) (www.greencoat-ukwind.com) in a £163 million deal.

The Brockaghboy wind farm, which features 15 wind turbines and has a capacity of 47.5MW, was purchased from Italian firm ERG Power Generation.

Tim Ingram, UKW chairman, said: “We are very pleased with this latest acquisition. 2017 was a busy year for us, and it is great to start 2018 with the acquisition of a 100% ownership stake in a brand-new good-sized wind farm with a very high load factor.”

The company already has three wind-farm operations in Northern Ireland.

Meanwhile the Department for the Economy released new statistics earlier this month which show that 34.8% of Northern Ireland’s electricity consumption last year came from renewable sources in the North last year — and that 84.3% of this was, in turn, generated by wind.