Giant offshore wind farm starts generating clean power

The Thanet Offshore Wind Farm off the south-east coast of England has started producing electricity and should be complete within a few months, says operator Vattenfall.

Seventy three of the 100 turbines that make up the 300-megawatt scheme, one of the largest offshore wind farms in the world, have been installed and the last of them should be running by September, the Swedish utility said.

"This is a major milestone in the construction of the wind farm. We are proud to be producing first power from our turbines," Ole Bigum Nielsen, Head of Offshore Projects at Vattenfall Wind Power said.

Each turbine made by Denmark's Vestas has a generation capacity of 3 MW. Together they should produce enough carbon-free electricity for about 240,000 homes in Britain, Vattenfall said.

Britain is banking on a boom in offshore wind projects to meet its renewable energy targets for 2020 under the European Union's plan to cut emissions of climate-warming carbon.