Ireland’s Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government has extended the consultation period on Marine Institute’s foreshore lease application to upgrade the Galway Bay Marine and Renewable Energy Test Site.
The consultation period, previously scheduled to end on 2 August, will now run until 9 September.
The extension follows a public meeting which took place on 21 July in the Connemara Coast Hotel, during which some participants requested more time to allow informed submissions on the lease application.
The Marine Institute applied in April to the then Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government for a foreshore lease for the Galway Bay test site where prototype marine renewable energy technology can be tested at reduced scale to determine viability in an ocean environment.
The lease proposes to allow a wider range of devices to be tested which would potentially include floating wind turbines. Under the lease application only one floating wind device could be tested on the site at any one time with a maximum of three unique renewable marine energy devices on site at any one time.
The lease application does not propose any change the location, area or size of the existing site.