The first offshore wind turbines at the West of Duddon Sands wind farm have been connected to the UK's national grid, say its developers.
Iberdrola and Dong Energy are in the process of installing 108 Siemens wind turbines at the 389 MW wind farm off the north-west coast of England. The first four units, each with a capacity of 3.6 MW, started operating at the end of January.
Iberdrola, through its UK subsidiary ScottishPower, and Dong have invested £1.6 billion (EUR 1.9bn) in the wind farm. A total of 42 wind turbines have been installed so far, in addition to 200 km of cables and 108 foundations.
The wind farm is a key part of the UK's plans to expand its offshore wind farm sector.
Earlier in January, the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) said that unclear political support for offshore wind energy in the UK was causing delays in planned projects as well as fewer new projects being launched.
In January RWE scaled back the size of its planned Triton Knoll offshore wind farm, to 600-900 MW from 1200 MW.
The decision followed an announcement in late 2013 that RWE would not proceed with the construction of the Atlantic Array offshore wind farm because the project's technical challenges made it prohibitive in current market conditions. ScottishPower has also cancelled the planned 1800 MW Argyll Array project because it was not financially viable in the short term.
Photo: West of Duddon Sands offshore windfarm(Source: Iberdrola)
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