Vattenfall is to build a 15 turbine offshore wind farm off the coast of Kent.
The company’s 49.5MW Kentish Flats Extension (KFE), consented by the UK government’s energy secretary earlier this year, has gained a final investment decision from the Vattenfall board of directors to deliver the energy scheme.
Vattenfall claims KFE will generate the equivalent power used by 42,000 UK households, in addition to the existing 30 turbine Kentish Flats Offshore Wind Farm.
Onshore works are scheduled to commence in the fourth quarter of 2014 with turbine installation taking place from the second quarter of 2015.
Located 8km off Whitstable and Herne Bay, the 15 turbines are predicted to have an annual production of 180,000MWh and will be in service for 20 years from the date of first power.
Commissioning of the turbines – each rated at 3.3MW, with a rotor diameter of 112m and tip height of 139.6m – will commence between the fourth quarter of 2015 and the first quarter of 2016.
Matthew Green, Vattenfall’s project manager for the scheme, said: ‘Vattenfall’s decision to invest around £150mn in Kentish Flats Extension is the final hurdle that needs to be cleared before construction can start…We will now complete a period of intense detailed engineering and planning for the construction phase in 2015.’
Peter Wesslau, Vattenfall’s UK country manager, said: ‘Since May this year we have promised to invest, in total, more than £600mn in two onshore wind power schemes and now offshore with Kentish Flats Extension. The UK is currently one of the most attractive places in Europe to invest in wind power and we are keen to continue building our business here.’
I have yet to see a report showing the cost effectiveness over lifetime of any large scale Wind power generation facility. Before any more of these monstrosities are approved or built a serious study must be undertaken. We have enough installed capacity to obtain highly accurate figures to enable accurate projections. If they fail to show adequate cost/efficiency figures, then they should be abandoned and dismantled for scrap as the situation allows. As I have said before, this whole ‘wind’ thing smacks of an inefficient device to make rich people richer at the taxpayers expense.
this facility will power 42000 homes will it. How many homes will it power on a calm day. What efficiency rating is the 180,000kw based on?
thank you JohnK you have summed it up well. Tide and wave is where the resorces should be going.
Could John explain what cost/efficiency figures are acceptable to him? Does the electricity have to be cheaper than gas? Does the efficiency have to exceed that of the least efficient coal fired station or the most efficient chp station? What part does CO2 emmissions play in his thinking? We shouldn’t forget the reason we are developing renewable sources of electricity. We mustn’t allow Cameron to undermine the issue.
Perhaps Stephen could think about how many homes are powered by any power station when it is shutdown for maintenance or breakdown.
It really is time that we stopped playing around with weather-dependent wind turbines, and directed our engineering expertise and funding towards a reliable tidal barrage on the Severn Estuary.
Malcolm… I think this comes under the ‘I asked first’ heading. Justify the expense and I will tell you if:
1) I find the numbers acceptable, and
2) If I believe them!
…… and Malcolm, take heed that it was 13 years of Labour inaction that forced this whole mess upon us.
Having said all that, I find it entirely unacceptable that we are not developing UK built Thorium or other ‘nuclear waste’ powered Nuclear Power generation as part of our ‘base load’ provision.
Peter, Given the secure Base load, via ‘clean coal, gas. Oil or Nuclear, then I agree, Tidal and Wave are the way for relatively intermittent production.
To import large proportions of both power and power generation equipment is buying trouble. Whether we can or even should, meet the, perhaps unrealistically high, ‘green’ CO2 targets set for the UK is not for this blog.
I am disappointed to read the negative comments [above] – ignore UK funding streams and check on the ‘interwobbly’ where China/India/USA et al are all installing giga-watts of capacity each with their own economic parameters.
In the meantime, go to the Uni. of Oxford’s website where 26+ years of data shows that usable wind energy was available everyday, somewhere across the UK.
So, MORE is better AND the fuel will always be FREE with no disposal costs [cf. £2.5B for Nuclear waste per year in UK!]
Graham. Saying that useable wind is available somewhere in the uk every day is like saying to an alcoholic that a pub is open somewhere in the uk every day. He’s not likely to get get very drunk, and neither are the wind powered generating facilities (How I detest the use of ‘Wind Farm’). You are in effect saying that only when the entire country is closely packed with these devices will we be guaranteed continuous power output. Insanity posing as science.
Excuse my ignorance, but isn’t one of the benefits of nuclear waste power generation is that its uses up the majority of existing nuclear waste. I read somewhere that there is 500 years worth of national power generation available from existing nuclear waste.
Other than the expense involved in building a waste powered nuclear power station, what’s the downside? The same article also states that the one recently commissioned by the British Government, paid for by the Chinese and built by the French is old technology, while the French have a number of waste powered stations themselves.
As a punter, it really doesn’t make sense to me when the next best infrastructure proposal is a railway line that, from what I can gather, saves 20 minutes from one end to the other, but it’s desperately needed to create jobs, whilst shipbuilding is abandoned. And yet there was a report in The Engineer the other day that some of the biggest container ships ever built are to be commissioned by a shipping magnate somewhere.
Our collective governments seem unwilling to compete on a global stage, we appear to be contracting in on ourselves commercially, and our lauded banking sector has proven to be a complete disaster as well.
What do we have left?
Malcolm,you say we must remember why this wind power is necessary. CO2 reduction.Germany is now covered with wind turbines (and has the highest electricity costs in the EU) they are also building 25 coal fired power stations to back up the wind power.
As the vast majority of our leaders (and betters?) studied non-technical subjects at University [that was when they were not behaving as ‘Hurrah Henrys’ in drinking clubs] it can surely come as little surprise how easily they can be conned into vast infrastructure projects -good or ill-,by those with hidden agendas: indeed in most cases not particularly well hidden.
I remember a couple of comedians some years ago: Little and Large. Is that the clue?
Take a little from a large number of citizens, add it up and have the where-with-all to give a large amount to a little number of already rich people.
Mike B
When will our government come up with a coherent energy policy and stop diverting money and effort on inefficient wind turbines that are only there for the subsidies. We have only a short period of time to put in place an energy policy that will keep us and the next generations warm.
Time to act!
Surely a good mixture of energy sources is the way to go, I think in Germany and Denmark they build solar tiles into houses as they go!!!, they are light years ahead of us stick in the muds. I say no to the dinosaurs grumbling on these pages. yes to clean energy !! just sayin………..