Centrica gets consent for latest farm as UK becomes world leader in offshore wind

Centrica plc, the parent company of British Gas, said the Lincs project – eight kilometres off the coast east of Skegness – would be capable of supplying around 170,000 British Gas customers and delivering CO2 savings of between 300,000 and 710,000 tonnes per annum.

The consent for Centrica’s latest proposed farm, which is subject to investment approval, comes as major construction work on its 194 MW Lynn and Inner Downsing wind farms draws to a close, pushing Britain into the lead in world offshore wind. UK installed capacity from offshore now totals 597 MW and has the potential to power the equivalent of around 300,000 UK homes.

Centrica said 45 of the 54 3.6 MW turbine generators Lynn and Inner Downsing are now commissioned and exporting power to the National Grid.

The Lincs project will be situated next to the Lynn and Inner Downsing farms and it is expected that both sites will be fully operational around the end of the year.

Commenting on the projects, Centrica chief executive, Sam Laidlaw, said: "Not only is Lynn and Inner Dowsing the biggest wind development in the world, it represents a major milestone on the journey to secure the UK's future energy needs. It's pleasing that our wind farms help the UK reach the top ranking in off shore wind power in the world but importantly it underlines the significant investment to supply our British Gas customers with renewable electricity in the years ahead."

Mike O'Brien, Minister of State at the new Department of Energy and Climate Change, who visited Lynn and Inner Downsing on Tuesday (October 21), said: "Offshore wind is hugely important to help realise the Government's ambition to dramatically increase the amount of energy from renewable sources. Overtaking Denmark is just the start. There are already five more offshore wind farms under construction that will add a further 938 megawatts to our total by the end of next year. We are also assessing plans to increase the total by a massive 25 gigawatts in the future. That's enough electricity for every home in the country."

At the British Wind Energy Association conference this week, Maria McCaffery, its chief executive, said: "We are now a global leader in a renewable energy technology for the first time ever. Now is the time to step up the effort even further and secure the huge potential for jobs, investment and export revenues that offshore wind has for Britain. We look forward to working in partnership with Government to ensure that this vital technology is deployed so we can deliver on our ambitious renewable target for 2020."

The news that the UK is now the world leader in wind power follows an announcement by the Carbon Trust to help accelerate offshore wind power in the UK. The Carbon Trust will work with five major energy companies, on a new £30 million initiative to help tackle one of the key barriers to offshore wind deployment – the rising costs of projects – which have more than doubled over the last five years.

The Carbon Trust is working with  DONG Energy (Denmark), Airtricity Developments (UK), RWE Innogy (Germany), ScottishPower Renewables (UK) and StatoilHydro (Norway) on the Offshore Wind Accelerator initiative and expects to reduce the cost of energy from offshore by 10 per cent or more.

Centrica, meanwhile, is exploring the opportunities for two further wind farms in the Greater Wash at Docking Shoal and Race Bank, totalling 1000 MW, which together with its existing operational wind assets, would give Centrica more than 1.6 GW of generating capacity in the UK, capable of meeting the annual needs of more than 1.1 million homes.