UK to have world's biggest offshore wind farm
Walney 3, which will be built in the Irish Sea just off the coast of Cumbria, will deliver electricity to more than 460,000 UK homes after authorities gave their approval to the 660MW project.
The new series of Siemens 7MW wind turbines are to be added to the existing Walney 1 and Walney 2 farms, with the total generating capacity of 1,027MW surpassing current largest offshore wind farm London Array’s capacity by nearly 400MW.
The project won a government contract through the Contracts for Difference (CfD) scheme, one of the first proposals to do so, however DONG Energy have not stated how much the project will cost.
Samuel Leupold, DONG Energy’s executive vice president, believes the wind farm extension will bring the company closer to their earmarked figure of 6.5GW worth of installed and available energy capacity by 2020.
“I'm very glad that we can now start construction of what will be the world's biggest offshore wind farm when completed,” he said.
"British offshore wind has seen phenomenal growth in recent years. A prerequisite for long-term growth in the industry is that offshore wind eventually can compete on costs with other energy technologies.
“Building Walney Extension will bring us one step closer to that target and I'm satisfied to see that we keep bringing costs down, while continuing to expand the UK supply chain.”
Operating under the UK’s Electric Market Reform, DONG Energy can use the Final Investment Decision aspect of the regime, enabling the company to fast-track the project with an as-yet-unspecified fixed price for the first 15 years of production.
