Windfarms interfering with RTÉ reception
RTÉ is in no doubt that reception difficulties are being caused by windfarms located in elevated parts of Cork and Kerry.
RTÉ also has plans to raise its transmission mast at Mullaghanish, near Ballyvourney, by 50 metres in an effort to improve reception. With more windfarms being planned, however, it looks as if problems will continue with both TV and radio signals.
The Rockchapel area of north Cork, for instance, will soon have more than 60 wind turbines, while more turbines are also in the pipeline for the Clonkeen and Kilgarvan areas, in Kerry.
Some windfarm developers act responsibly and consult RTÉ about interference in advance of construction, according to Mick Kehoe, executive director of RTÉ Transmission Network Ltd. But, he added, other developers ‘completely ignore’ the impact they can have on communities for TV and radio reception.
“Unfortunately, unless there is a co-ordinated effort, television and, to a lesser extent radio reception in the areas around Rockchapel and down across to Kilgarvan, will be seriously damaged by the development of wind farms,” he said in a letter replying to Minister of State for the Environment Batt O’Keeffe.
At present they were aware of 13 developments in these areas, but there were many more in the wider region.
“Only a few of these have been built and television reception has already been seriously impacted,” Mr Kehoe said. He said the Taurbeg windfarm had caused the majority of difficulties in the Rockchapel area by blocking out the signal from Mullaghanish, but the developer had acted to mitigate the problem to an extent by installing Sky satellite packages in a number of homes.
In the Kilgarvan area, he said they had a low-power transmission site and were able to re-engineer the system, with some support from a windfarm developer. That mitigated the problem, but not everyone was satisfied.
Mr Kehoe said: “despite our best efforts, we are not making meaningful progress in relation to some current developments,’ he went on.
“It will take a co-ordinated approach and the enforcement of a formal requirement on windfarm developers, or similar, to address the issue of interference with television and radio transmissions at an early stage of the planning and development process. It is our view that this can be best addressed by the planning departments of the various county councils, but it will need neighbouring counties like Cork and Kerry to work together,” he stated.
RTÉ Transmission Network will shortly be submitting a planning application to increase the height of the Mullaghanish mast from 170 metres to 220 metres. That should help reduce the impact of some windfarms and also allow for the transmission of digital terrestrial television, which is not as open to interference from windfarms. It is hoped to have the mast raised by the end of 2008.
Meanwhile, RTÉ is contacting every windfarm developer whose details can be unearthed, county council planning departments, ComReg and community groups.
Also, Minister O’Keeffe has promised to take up the issue with Environment Minister Dick Roche. He also said he would be asking councils in Cork and Kerry to ensure windfarm developers complied with planning regulations guidelines.
Organisations in affected areas have been campaigning for improvements to the situation, pointing out that the areas with poor reception already suffer from many other disadvantages.
Siobhan Griffin, of the Kerry County Community and Voluntary Forum, said the situation was most unsatisfactory. Some of the areas affected by poor reception had large numbers of older people, who had little social interaction and for whom television was very important.
As more windfarms are constructed in the years ahead, in line with Government and EU policies, more problems with reception will inevitably arise in different parts of the country.
Some experts are saying that satellite is the only real solution.
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