Green Light for Largest Renewables Project in U.K.

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Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland) - The largest renewable project in U.K. history is to move forward following the granting of permission for the Dogger Bank Creyke Beck offshore windfarm in the North Sea.

Previously known as Dogger Bank, the development of Zone 3 has been given the green light by the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, Ed Davey, and comprises two windfarms each with a potential generating capacity of 1,200-megawatts (MW). They will be located in the Dogger Bank Zone which lies 125 kilometers (km) to 290km off the coast of East Yorkshire and boast approximately 400 turbines across an area of around 500 square kilometers. When commissioned they will power 1.8 million homes.

"This is another great boost for Yorkshire and Humberside," explained Energy and Climate Change Secretary Davey. "This development has the potential to support hundreds of green jobs and power up to two million homes. Making the most of Britain's home grown energy is creating jobs and businesses in the U.K., getting the best deal for consumers and reducing our reliance on foreign imports. Wind power is vital to this plan, with £14.5 billion invested since 2010 into an industry which supports 35,400 jobs."

The windfarm is being developed by the Forewind consortium, made up of SSE plc (Perth, Scotland), RWE npower Renewables (Swindon, England), Statoil ASA (NYSE:STO) (Stavangar, Norway) and Statkraft AS (Oslo, Norway).

When constructed, Dogger Bank Creyke Beck will be second only to the 3,900 MW Drax coal-fired station in North Yorkshire. It will sit alongside the 2,400 MW Longannet coal-fired station in Fife, Scotland, as the second largest power generator in the country.

Huub den Rooijen, Head of Offshore Wind for The Crown Estate which manages the U.K. seabed, commented: "Today's announcement for Dogger Bank Creyke Beck is the largest planning consent for an offshore wind development globally. The sheer scale of this project creates the potential for it to be built at significantly lower costs, presenting a powerful opportunity for economic growth and jobs."

It hasn't been all plain sailing for Dogger Bank. At the start of March last year Forewind announced that it was reducing the development from its original 9,000 MW to 7,200 MW. For additional information, see March 3, 2014, article - U.K.'s Largest Planned Offshore Project Shrinks.

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