Centrica wins consent for Lincs offshore wind farm
Wednesday 22 October 2008
Energy giant Centrica has been successful in its application to build a 250MW offshore wind farm off the Lincolnshire coast, it was announced yesterday.
The Lincs Offshore Wind Farm is to be built right next to Centrica's Round One offshore wind farms of Lynn and Inner Dowsing
Centrica said yesterday the project would be capable of supplying around 170,000 of its British Gas customers with power, and delivering carbon dioxide emission savings of up to 710,000 tonnes a year compared to the equivalent fossil fuel power.
Approval from the government followed a detailed application submitted last year that included a full environmental statement.
Commenting on the company's investment in wind energy, Sam Laidlaw, chief executive of Centrica, said: "We're already the UK's greenest energy supplier and wind will continue to play an important role in our renewable generation strategy. The significant investments we have made in wind for British Gas customers to date have contributed significantly towards meeting the Government's challenging targets for renewable generation."
British Gas owner Centrica acquired the Lincs project in 2003 from developer Renewable Energy Systems (RES) for an undisclosed sum. RES, which was responsible for the original proposal, is continuing work on the project under its new owners.
Offshore world leaders
Wind will continue to play an important part in our renewable generation strategy
If built, the Lincs project would be situated next to the company's Round One offshore wind farm developments at Lynn and Inner Dowsing, which the Department for Energy and Climate Change yesterday announced had taken Britain into the lead in the world offshore stakes.
The major work on the two Round One projects, which have a combined installed capacity of 194MW, is now complete and 45 of the 54 turbines are now commissioned and supplying power to the National Grid, using six export cables that link the two wind farms to a substation in Skegness.
It is expected that both wind farms will be fully operational around the end of the year.
Centrica also reports that it is considering the development of two further wind farms in the Greater Wash at Docking Shoal, and another at Race Bank, which could potentially generate a combined total of 1GW of power. The firm estimates that, subject to approval and construction, the three projects could be operational by the middle of the next decade.
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