The world’s largest offshore wind farm is now online off the coast of England.
Consisting of 175, 3.6 MW Siemens’ wind turbines, the London Array offshore wind farm will provide electricity for 500,000 homes.
In this first phase, 630 megawatts of turbines were installed in just two years; another 200 MW are expected to be added in the coming two years.
Spread over 155 square miles, the wind farm is about 12.5 miles offshore in the outer Thames Estuary, east of London.
Denmark’s Dong Energy A/S holds 50% interest in the project, E.ON (EOAN.DE) 30% and Abu Dhabi’s state-owned green energy firm Masdar holds the remaining 20%.
The wind farm will prevent 900,000 tons of carbon emissions each year.
"As we now look to our pipeline of future projects, DONG Energy is determined to drive down the costs of our offshore wind farms to €100 per megawatt hour for projects we’ll be sanctioning in 2020," says Benj Sykes, Country Manager for DONG Energy’s UK Wind business. "What we have learnt at London Array will help us achieve that."
In July, Scotland voted to move ahead with a much larger offshore wind farm – if it doesn’t get derailed by one man, Donald Trump. He plans to use all the resources necessary to stop it because he doesn’t like the view.
The 339-turbine wind farm off the Scottish coast would power up to 40% of the homes in Scotland, about 800,000 households. At 1.5 gigawatts (GW), it would be 50% larger than the giant 1 GW London Array.
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