“Big” may soon be an inadequate word to describe offshore wind farms. When it comes to both their size and capacity, these turbines are becoming truly vast.
“Big” may soon be an inadequate word to describe offshore wind farms. When it comes to both their size and capacity, these turbines are becoming truly vast.
Increasing numbers of people will use the energy they provide—especially in the UK. There, Dong Energy, a Denmark-based wind farm developer, has taken the final investment decision on what it says will be the biggest wind farm ever built.
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“With a capacity of 1.2 gigawatts (GW), Hornsea Project One will be the world’s first offshore wind farm to exceed 1 GW in capacity and will become – by a considerable margin – the world’s largest offshore wind farm,” the company said in a press release.
Each turbine will stand 190 meters tall:
Once it’s up and running in 2020, the project will produce enough power for a million homes, Dong said. It will be located 75 miles off the coast of the coast of Yorkshire, northeast England.
The UK has so far continued to back offshore wind—in which it is a world leader—even though the Conservative government has slashed subsidies and support for most other renewables over the last 12 months, citing costs but riling an industry that says the resultant uncertainty is killing investment.
Last year, Dong predicted that massive wind turbines could produce a third of all power used in the UK by 2030.
