World's largest offshore wind farm wins go-ahead

Published on Tuesday 12 May 2009 19:21

PLANS to build the world's largest offshore wind farm off the Kent coast are to go ahead, it was announced yesterday.

Power giant E.ON said the first phase of the London Array project would start later this year and it could be generating power in time for the 2012 Olympics.

The wind farm will be built 12 miles off the UK coast and will involve 341 turbines.

The project had been on a knife edge, but increased support for renewable energy announced in the recent Budget led to today's announcement.

E.ON and its partners Dong Energy and Masdar said they would invest 2.2 billion in building the first 630 megawatt phase of wind farm in the Thames Estuary. Once complete, the scheme will be the world's largest, and the first one gigawatt offshore wind farm.

The project will supply enough power for around 750,000 homes – a quarter of all those in Greater London – and displace the emission of 1.9 million tonnes of CO2 every year.