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Breaking ground for £230 Eishken wind farm construction      16/10/12

A ground breaking ceremony to mark the commencement of construction of the first giant wind farm in the Western Isles took place on Tuesday.

Preliminary engineering is underway and on-site building work expected to begin soon for the £230 million Muaitheabhal Wind Farm at the private Eishken estate in South Lochs, Lewis.

The scheme is due to start produce electricity in 2016 soon after a proposed subsea link is expected to be finished.

The windfarm would produce enough electricity to power 100,000 homes which is over ten times more than required locally.

The development is owned by energy conglomerate International Power - controlled by French firm GDF SUEZ - which bought the scheme from estate landlord Nicholas Oppenheim earlier this year.

Already there are plans to almost double the size of the development with a new £180 million energy scheme of 30 huge turbines immediately to the south.

It is proposed the huge turbines, blades and machinery needed for both schemes could sail on ships up to the edge of the wind farm location. Construction workers would also be ferried by boat.

Big trucks and construction vehicles would also be delivered on boats under plans to avoid wrecking local roads by large lorries trucking the heavy cargo.