'World's
largest wind farm' planned for London
08 June
2005
Plans were
announced yesterday for what would be the largest wind farm in the
world. Known as the London Array, the
270 turbine offshore farm
will be sited 12 miles of the Kent coast. Each turbine will be 100m
high, and the entire site, which is scheduled to be built in three
stages, will eventually cover an area of almost 250 sq km.
Once completed, the 1,000 MW Array is expected to produce enough
electricity to power almost a quarter of London's domestic housing
needs. It will be built by a consortium of the energy companies
Shell, Core and E.on Renewables.
Both Greenpeace
and Friends of the Earth welcomed the news. Greenpeace Executive
director Stephen Tindale said:
"The
Government's Chief Scientific Advisor Sir David King considers
climate change to be the greatest challenge our planet has ever
faced. It is crucially important that we clean up the way we generate
our energy in response to this threat and that means developing
renewables like wind power as fast as possible. The UK is blessed
with the best wind resource in Europe. The London Array offshore
wind farm, which when complete will be largest wind farm anywhere
in the world, represents a major step forward in harnessing the
UK's massive wind resource and will contribute to the UK's efforts
to avoid the worst effects of climate change."
The Array
still has to negotiate a complex planning process, and overcome
concerns over possible wildlife and environmental impacts, but
FOE's Director Tony
Juniper said the project was "urgently required" to
tackle the problem of carbon dioxide emissions.
If the go
ahead is given some time next year, as the consortium hopes, construction
could be completed by 2011, and would supply 750,000 homes.
|
