Netherlands plans to build a wind farm in the North Sea 75 kilometres off the coast

Located in waters 30-35 metres deep, the wind farm will have 20-60 wind turbines, but will not be visible from land.

With a wind capacity of 100 to 300 megawatts, the wind turbine park is intended to provide 100,000 to 300,000 households with electricity.

The Dutch government wants its wind farms on the North Sea to have a combined wind energy capacity of 6,000 megawatts by 2020.

In 2009, a total of eight new wind farms consisting of 199 offshore wind turbines, with a combined power generating capacity of 577 MW, were connected to the grid in Europe.
 
This represents a growth rate of 54% compared to the 373 MW installed during 2008. For 2010, the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) expects the completion of 10 additional European offshore wind farms, adding 1,000 MW and equivalent to market growth of 75% compared to 2009.

More than 100 GW of projects are at various stages of planning and could provide enough wind power to meet 10% of European electricity demand.

Europe is the world leader in offshore wind energy with 828 wind turbines and a cumulative capacity of 2,056 MW spread across 38 offshore wind farms in nine European countries.

www.rwe.com