World?s biggest offshore wind farm consolidates UK?s global lead

The Walney Offshore Wind farm project is located approximately 15km west of Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria. The wind power project consists of Walney 1 and Walney 2 each with 51 – 3.6 MW wind turbines, giving a total capacity of the Walney wind energy project of 367.2 MW. The rotor diameter of the wind turbines is 107m for Walney 1 and 120m for Walney 2, with a maximum height of 150m from blade tip to sea level. The total area of the development is some 73km2.
 
RenewableUK, the trade association representing the wind, wave and tidal energy industry, has welcomed the official opening of the world’s largest offshore wind farm by the Energy Secretary Ed Davey.

Walney Offshore Wind farms off the coast of Cumbria (consisting of 2 projects, Walney 1 and Walney 2), has the capacity to power for 320,000 homes.

Maria McCaffery MBE, RenewableUK’s Chief Executive, who attended the opening ceremony, said: ”The inauguration of the world’s largest offshore wind farm is a major step forward for the UK’s wind industry. It consolidates our global lead in offshore wind, and confirms the scale of our ambitions for the future. The Government is calling for a significant increase in the deployment of offshore wind over the course of this decade. Projects such as Walney demonstrate exactly how this will be achieved.

“With the opening of Walney, the UK now has more than 1.7 gigawatts of wind capacity installed offshore – enough to power more than 950,000 homes. A further 7.4 GW is under construction, approved or in planning. Beyond that, the next round of offshore wind farms, Round Three, will add a further 32 GW, giving us more than 4 0GW before 2030 – more than half the UK’s current capacity to generate all electricity”.

“To supply the wind turbines that will be needed for the massive expansion in offshore wind energy, multinational companies have already submitted plans to build factories in the UK which will employ thousands of people. Nearly 90,000 people will be working in the sector by 2021”.

www.renewableuk.com