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Huge New Wind Farms Approved in the UK

June 5, 2008

In a push to meet tough renewable energy targets set out by the EU, the British government has announced that it will open a new and much larger phase, in its existing wind farm projects. The latest phase will call for bids to produce an addition 25 GW from offshore wind farms, drastically reducing the carbon footprint of the country.

This represents a third phase in their wind program, which has already approved 8 GW of wind energy. The combined total of 33GW will represent 25% of all the electricity needs of the UK.

Of the announcement, UK Energy Minister, Malcolm Wicks, said “The expansion of wind energy is already a real success story for the UK. We will shortly become the leading country in the world in terms of the number of wind farms operating offshore. The potential for round three will add to that success.”

Mr. Wicks hopes that this vote of confidence in the wind power industry will spur the necessary investment from private businesses to make this project a reality. This is currently an area of concern, as Shell recently pulled out of the London Array wind project.

The announcement yesterday was made by the Crown Estate, which manages all of the land holdings of the monarch, including all of the sea bed around the island nation. As further incentive, the Crown Estate has pledged to pay for up to half of the pre-construction costs, though maintained it would not be involved at all in the construction phase.

But the European Union goals will remain a challenge to reach. The entire union is expected to have 20% of its energy from renewables by 2020, with Britain’s specific goal set at 40%. As well, nuclear power in the country, which currently makes up 19% of electricity supply, is in a rapid decline as many old plants come to the end of their life and no new plants are scheduled to be built.

The bidding process is expected to be completed by 2015 and the wind farms should be operational by 2020, just in time to meet the nations goals for the EU.

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