The recent go ahead from the British government for a new offshore wind farm will further widen the lead the UK recently achieved in offshore wind power generation.
The new 250 megawatt offshore wind power project will generate electricity to cater to the power needs of approximately 170,000 UK homes. It’s estimated the project will create a carbon dioxide emission reduction of between 300,000 and 710,000 tonnes annually.
The Lincs project is being developed by British wind energy giant, Centrica and will be situated 8 kilometres off the coast east of Skegness, near Lynn and Inner Dowsing, which is currently the biggest offshore wind farm development in the world.
The recent completion and commissioning of 194MW of wind turbine capacity at Lynn and Inner Dowsing means that the UK has now overtaken Denmark, which has 423MW of offshore wind turbines. The Lynn and Inner Dowsing project boosted offshore wind capacity in the UK to 590 megawatts, enough to power 300,000 homes.
Centrica is also looking into developing two other wind farms totalling 1000 MW capacity and anticipates by the middle of next decade the three projects, along with other wind farms in the company’s portfolio, would give Centrica more than 1.6 GW of generating capacity in the UK – enough to meet the power needs of more than 1.1 million homes.
While these developments provide a real boost for British renewable energy, critics point out the UK still ranks very low in Europe in relation to renewable energy implementation. Greenpeace UK has also lamented the fact that the wind turbines used in the project were produced overseas, pointing out that if they had been made locally, it would have created many new jobs and helped support an ailing British manufacturing sector.
