Ørsted has announced the winners of the fourth round of applications to the Walney Extension Community Fund, which was established to support community and environmental projects near the 659MW offshore wind farm in Cumbria, UK.
In this latest round, sixteen groups will receive a share of the GBP 250,000 windfall available in each round and will join a list of 43 other community groups that have already benefitted from the fund.
“The Community Fund gives us a great outlet to support the hard work of many local organisations and we are delighted to announce the latest round of funding. The region plays a significant role in our offshore wind operations and it’s important to us to try to make a lasting and positive impact locally,” Humphrey Laidlaw , Ørsted Policy Analyst, said.
The fifth round of the fund is now open, while the deadline for submitting applications is 4 July 2018.
More than GBP 1 million was committed to projects located near the Walney Extension offshore wind farm since the fund was launched in 2016, Ørsted said. Approximately GBP 600,000 will be made available each year for community projects for the expected 25 year lifetime of the wind farm.
Walney Extension will comprise 40 MHI Vestas 8MW turbines and 47 Siemens Gamesa 7MW turbines. It is scheduled for completion in the second half of 2018.
The offshore wind farm is a shared-ownership project between Ørsted (50%) and two Danish pension funds PFA (25%) and PKA (25%).