Offshore ‘cheaper than gas and nuclear’

THE WORLD’S biggest offshore wind farm will go ahead at record low prices after securing subsidies in the latest Government auction, its backers said.

The three successful offshore wind projects in the auction include Dong Energy’s Hornsea Project Two, 55 miles off the Yorkshire coast.

It will have enough capacity to power 1.3m homes and will receive a guaranteed “strike” price for its electricity of £57.50 per megawatt hour.

The trade association RenewableUK hailed developers’ “relentless focus” on innovation, which has seen the price fall by nearly half in just two and a half years to become cheaper than gas and nuclear.

At 1,386 megawatts (MW) Project Two will overtake the giant 1,200MW Hornsea Project One currently being constructed by Dong Energy to become the world’s biggest offshore wind farm.

Great Grimsby MP Melanie Onn said the announcement was “really good news for Grimsby. It means that companies already based in our area expand in the work they are doing”.

Turbine blades manufactured by Siemens from its recently opened factory in Hull are due to be supplied to Project One.

The auction results also saw contracts awarded to the 860MW Triton Knoll Offshore Wind Farm, off Lincolnshire, and 950MW Moray East Wind Farm off the Scottish East Coast.

Matthew Wright, MD for Dong Energy UK, said: “Not only will Hornsea Project Two provide low-cost clean energy to the UK, it will also deliver high-quality jobs and another huge boost to the UK supply chain. Successive governments deserve great credit for providing the certainty for continued investment in offshore wind, enabling it to become the thriving renewable industry it is today.”