Consent has been granted by the government for the construction of two wind farms off the Norfolk Coast with a combined capacity of more than 1GW.
According to the Department of Energy and Climate Change, 6.6GW of offshore wind power is now either operational, under construction or consented in the UK.
The two wind farms at Race Bank (580MW) and Dudgeon (560MW) in the Greater Wash could generate enough electricity to power around 730,000 homes. The projects represent around £3bn of investment.
An application for a third project at Docking Shoal, also off the Norfolk coast, has, however, been refused due to the potential impact on Sandwich terns in the area.
Charles Hendry, minister of state for energy, said: ‘The UK is racing ahead of the global field and these two new offshore wind farms underline this momentum.
‘These two projects will not only bring us considerable amounts of clean energy, but significant investment and jobs too.’
Would it not make sense to join forces with the tidal barrage scheme suggested for this area and use some common infrastructure?
http://www.tidalenergy.eu/wash_barrage.html
That’ll be more feed in tariff we have to pay for an intermittent, expensive, energy source. Nuclear power instead, please.
okay we will build it next to your house and bury the waste in your garden. and charge you the billions it costs to decommission it in 30 years time. its hard enough to get anyone to agree with onshore wind farms let alone nuclear power plants. fukushima ? chernobyl ? 3 mile island.
I’m with Dave and Nick. However I’m also a great believer in solar, but the government need to make it financially viable – for home owners and commercial solar fields. It is locally generated so avoids distribution costs. I don’t really like the look of cell banks on houses, can’t we develope roof tiles that plug together and make up the whole roof (with end tiles and caps to suit, and dummys for the shady side).
Robin, as your concern is aesthetics, not real sustainable power, Google – solar tiles,
I live near Wilfa nuclear station & 2 windfarms, as I write this…. no wind = no power.
The Wind turbines are an absolute waste of money. Despite the billions invested they only produce a tiny amount of grid deliverable gigawattage. They are simply totally unreliable. Wind infrastructure has to be backed up by gas in order to ensure the lights stay on. You end up with thousands of turbines despoiling our beautiful countryside together with thousands of pylons to connect them with the existing grid & almost no reduction in CO2 ( the original reason for them). It’s a total scam.
I also have So;ar PV … it’s great, a 4kW system (@ moment giving 0.637kW), maybe Pi$$ poor at producing reliable energy ( we have Wilfa for that) but it generates a nice 30% return on investment, tax free & index linked for 25yrs. I think the government made it very financially viable, & poor people pay for all my electric !! yet another scam.
Can’t upset the Sandwich terns, but we have to put up with the damned things.
I’m coming back as a natterjack toad!