The wind farm at the Solway Firth in the Irish Sea consists of 60 turbines and is expected to produce power for almost 120,000 homes eventually, displacing the emission of 235,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide every year.
The turbines are supplied by Danish firm Vestas Wind Systems. Each turbine has a capacity of 3MW. To cut carbon emissions by 80% by 2050 from the 1990 levels, Britain has launched a programme to expand its offshore wind capacity to more than 30GW.
E. ON, which has 1,300MW of renewable capacity under development, is investing £50m in new technologies and approaches over 10 years, through the Energy Technologies Institute. The group intends to reduce the carbon intensity of its generation by 50% by 2030 (on 1990 levels) and aims to spend €8 billion between 2007 and 2011 on renewable generation and climate protection activities.
Ian Johnson, project manager of Robin Rigg, said: “There’s still a long, long way to go but, with the weather looking good for the next few days, we’ll be looking to start the commissioning process very soon and to get a lot more turbines turning.
“It should be quite a sight with all the boats out there and more and more turbines starting to turn.”
