South Coast of England Offshore Wind Farm Gets Thumbs Up for Extension

Just off the Kent coast of Southern England,  near Herne Bay and Whitstable, lies one of the first offshore wind farms built in the UK.  This is the Kentish Flats Offshore Wind Farm. It was completed eight years ago.

At the moment it consists of 30 3MW Vestas turbines generate more than 280 GWh of green electricity every year, which is equivalent to the total annual electricity need of more than 61,000 UK households. The wind farm is arranged in a regular grid of five east-west rows each of six turbines, sited in an area of 10 km2 just outside the main River Thames/English Channel shipping lanes. The spacing between each turbine and rows of turbines is 700 metres. The generated electricity is fed into the electricity network via a sub-station at Herne Bay for use in the national grid. It’s a good location because the site is easily accessed from the local maintenance port at Whitstable, a mere30 minutes away by boat. The water depth is on averageonly five metres, making underwater maintenance easy.

Vattenfall, the Swedish-owned energy company has recently concluded consultations with the local community, local authorities and statutory consultees for an extension of  the wind farm and the good news is that they have been given approval for an extension in the form of a development consent order. The plan is to add  up to 17 turbines which will deliver up to 51MW of installed capacity.

51.4408784790372 1.09401353724434 local pinned1 South Coast of England Offshore Wind Farm Gets Thumbs Up for Extension

What turbines are to be used? Vattenfall plan to purchase Vestas V112 3.0 megawatt (MW) wind turbine generators. Vestas are the “preferred supplier”.  Whilst preferred supplier status puts Vestas in pole position for the contract the deal has not yet been completed.

Göran Loman, Vattenfall’s Project Manager for the proposal to extend Kentish Flats, said: “We are pleased to have been able to agree preferred supplier status with Vestas and look forward to again joining forces with them and benefitting further from their extensive offshore wind experience. Obviously for wind farms the turbine is the key component and getting to this stage is a good bit of work.”

loman1 South Coast of England Offshore Wind Farm Gets Thumbs Up for Extension

The existing Kentish Flats Wind Farm currently uses 30 Vestas V90-3.0MW wind turbines and has been generating clean, green electricity since 2005. It is expected to start generating renewable power in late 2015 or early 2016.