Commenting on the announcement by Centrica and DONG Energy that they have jointly decided to cease developing wind farms in the Irish Sea Zone via their joint venture, Celtic Array Ltd, RenewableUK’s Director of Offshore Renewables, Nick Medic, said:
“Although it’s disappointing that this particular project isn’t going ahead, the reasons are understandable – conditions on the sea bed would make the project economically unviable at this stage.
“However, let’s not forget that one of the Celtic Array partners, DONG Energy, already has a healthy pipeline of 7 offshore wind farms up and running in UK waters, another 2 under construction, a further project approved and 3 others in the final stages of gaining consent.
“Overall we still have over 37 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity in the UK’s project pipeline, so we’re set to maintain our huge global lead in offshore wind, creating tens of thousands of jobs in the decades ahead to add to the 13,000 we have already.
“Offshore wind is already powering the equivalent of two and a half million British homes and that’s set to more than treble by the end of the decade, providing a secure supply of clean energy at a cost which is reducing constantly through economies of scale”.
Overall, the UK has 22 operational wind farms (3,654MW), plus 5 under construction (1,401MW), 11 consented (5,095MW) and 9 in the planning system (10,138MW). A further 15 projects are being developed but have not yet entered the planning system. (16,870MW). This gives a total of 62 offshore wind farm projects.