The opening ceremony of the Thanet wind farm has took place yesterday at sea with the CEO and President of Vattenfall, Øystein Løseth, and the British Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Chris Huhne MP, among the participants and the 100 wind power turbines as an impressive backdrop.
“With Thanet Offshore Wind Farm, Vattenfall has taken a major step towards doubling its generation from wind power until 2011 and we continue to lead the way in offshore wind development. Wind power will be a corner-stone of delivering both profitability and sustainability for Vattenfall in the years to come,” says Øystein Løseth, adding, “This project would not have been possible without the British Government’s active support and its commitment to renewable energy.”
UK reaches 5 GW milestone
Pointing out that Thanet Offshore Wind Farm’s 300 megawatts (MW) will take UK installed wind power capacity across the 5,000MW line, Rt. Hon. Chris Huhne MP hailed Vattenfall’s impressive engineering achievement and praised the energy company’s commitment to wind power in the UK.
“I’m pleased that we’ve reached the point where 5GW of our energy comes from onshore and offshore wind – that’s enough electricity to power all the homes in Scotland. Getting these massive structures out here into the sea is a tremendous feat of engineering and I applaud all involved with this awesome achievement,” said Huhne. “We are in a unique position to become a world leader in this industry. We are an island nation and I firmly be-lieve we should be harnessing our wind, wave and tidal resources to the maximum. I know that there is still more to do to bring forward the large sums of investment we want to see in low-carbon energy in the UK, and we as Government are committed to playing our part”.
The construction of the 300 MW Thanet Offshore Wind Farm has taken just over two years and the wind farm is expected to operate for at least 25 years. At 300MW, it is the largest offshore wind farm in the world. Each turbine is up to 115 metres tall at its highest point. The wind farm covers an area of 35 square kilometres, which is enough to cover 4,000 football pitches.
Between 2009 and 2011, Vattenfall plans on doubling its wind power electricity generation, constructing nine wind farms in six countries to supply electricity equivalent to the demand of 800,000 households annually.
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