Published at 13:13, Monday, 17 May 2010

BY the end of 2011 offshore wind farms along the Energy Coast that did not exist before 2006 will be providing enough power when the wind blows to supply a massive 630,000 British homes.

TAKING SHAPE: Steel foundation piles for the Walney offshore wind farm being unloaded at Barrow port, having been brought in on a ship called Annette in March. ABOVE LEFT: One of the piles is raised into the vertical position by a crane, in readiness for installation, at the site of the Walney Offshore Wind Farm JOE RILEY REF: 50003346B001/SUBMITTED

And it won’t stop there, more wind farms are almost certainly on the way in the Irish Sea, some near the coast as now, others much further out in Zone 9 – the huge patch of sea between North Wales and Cumbria, that was licensed to energy giant Centrica early this year.

If it goes ahead it will develop deep water wind farms some around 26 miles off the Cumbrian coast with up to 1,000 turbines in total.

The first offshore wind farm in Cumbrian waters was Barrow Offshore Wind (BOWind) built in 2006 and half owned by Danish Oil and Natural Gas (Dong) and UK gas leader Centrica.

Its 30 turning turbines four miles off Walney Island can generate enough power for 65,000 homes in the right conditions.

Then followed Robin Rigg between Cumbria and Scotland in the Solway whose first turbines began to power up last September.

Its 60 turbines will supply 120,000 homes with power.

In April this year work began nine miles off Barrow on the massive, £1bn, Walney Offshore Windfarm for Dong energy and Scottish and Southern Energy.

Its 102 turbines, each generating 3.5 megawatts of power, will be built in two phases of 51, should be capable of supplying a massive 320,000 homes with electricity by the end of 2011. The first turbines switch on in October and in the meantime Barrow port is having a bumper year sharing work as a supply port with Mostyn in Wales.

The news got even better in mid-May when the Crown Estates announced a major extension to the licensed block of seabed Dong Energy holds. It means if the Danes decide to push ahead with the extension the Walney Offshore Windfarm could end up with 300 turbines instead of 100 with more business and jobs at Barrow. At the end of April another watery worksite was created six miles off Barrow when work began on building the £500m Ormonde wind farm for Swedish firm Vattenfall.

It only has half Robin Rigg’s 60 turbines, but they will be the biggest at sea, each of them five megawatts, so when complete it should power up 125,000 homes.

And there is more where that came from. The West of Duddon Sands wind farm which has clearance will have up to 150 turbines bringing the number off Barrow alone to around 500 sets of spinning blades with 60 more at Robin Rigg.

Published by http://www.nwemail.co.uk