World's Largest Offshore Windfarm Officially Opened

Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland) - The world's largest offshore windfarm has been officially opened off the Kent coast in southeast England.

The London Array boasts 175 turbines and has a total generating capacity of 630-megawatts (MW), enough to power nearly half a million homes. The official opening was carried out by the U.K. Prime Minister, David Cameron, Secretary of State, Ed Davey and Energy Minister, Greg Barker.

Owned jointly by Dong Energy A/S (Fredericia, Denmark) (50%), Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (Masdar) (Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates) (20%) and German energy giant E.ON AG (OTC:EONGY) (Dusseldorf, Germany) (30%), London Array sits 20 kilometers (km) off the coasts of Kent and Essex on a 245km2 site. Phase One covers an area of 90km2. A proposed second phase could add another 240 MW, boosting the overall capacity of London Array to 870 MW.

"Today is very simple," said Prime Minister Cameron. "It's a triple win. First of all it's a huge win for Kent. It's going to continue to bring benefits to people in Kent for many, many years to come. The second thing is that it's a big win for is renewable energy. Sometimes people wonder, 'Can you really have renewable energy projects at scale?' What the London Array shows - powering half a million homes, the biggest offshore wind farm anywhere in the world - it absolutely shows that you can do scale renewables and you can do them right here in Britain. And that leads me to the third, and I think the most important win of all, and it's a very big win for Britain. Sometimes people wonder, 'Can we in the West do big projects anymore? Can we do the big investments? Isn't that all happening somewhere else in the east and south of our world?' If you look at the U.K., you can see we can do big projects. Not far from here is London Gateway, which is the biggest port construction taking place anywhere in Europe, and here you have the biggest offshore construction anywhere in the world."

Edward Davey added: "London Array is a big deal for offshore wind, a big deal for U.K. electricity supply and a big deal for inward investment into the U.K.. It's the biggest offshore windfarm in the world. It's a bulk generator of power feeding into the diverse mix on our grid. Half a million homes will be London Array powered. This is good news for keeping our lights on and reducing carbon emissions. And it's attracted billions of inward investment into our economy."

The project uses 175 Siemens turbines, rated at 3.6MW each. Construction on the project began in July 2009 with the construction of a substation on the north Kent coast to relay power from the Array to the national grid. Offshore the first foundation was installed in March 2011 with the final turbine erected last December. For additional information, see December 20, 2012, article - Final Turbine in at Giant London Array Windfarm.

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