Monday 17 December 2012

Last turbine goes up at ‘world’s largest’ wind farm

The last turbine has been erected at what will be the world’s largest offshore farm when it is finished.

The 175th turbine at the London Array in the  Thames Estuary caps off a real feat of engineering, after the first was installed in January 2012.

Standing around 20km off the coasts of Kent and Essex, the wind farm is being built in two phases. All the turbines for the first 630MW phase are in place and 43 are connected and supplying power to the national grid. This means the wind farm should be fully operational in Spring 2013.

Owned by Danish energy group DONG Energy, German supplier E.ON and Abu Dhabi developers Masdar, the London Array has cost a reported £3billion.

Benj Sykes, Head of DONG Energy's UK Wind business said: "Having the final turbine installed is another landmark in this flagship project for the UK and for DONG Energy. The London Array will soon be the largest operational offshore wind farm in the world - building offshore wind farms of this size and larger in the future allows us to harvest the advantages of scale and is an important element of our strategy to drive down the cost of energy."

If approved, the second phase will add enough capacity to bring the total to 870MW.