19.02.2007

New wind farm for Thames Estuary

A 140 turbine wind farm is to be given the green light today.
With the power to supply clean electricity to over 415,000 homes, the Greater Gabbard (GG) scheme will supply 500MW and cut CO2 emissions by 1.5m tonnes a year - the equivalent of taking 350,000 cars off the road. The project is being developed by Airtricity and Fluor.

The wind farm is to be placed close to two shallow sandbanks - the Inner Gabbard and the Galloper - around 23km (12 miles) from the Suffolk coast. The sites will occupy an area of nearly 150 square kilometres within the outer Thames Estuary strategic wind farm area.

"We need more renewable energy as part of the mix of generation of electricity. It cuts emissions while powering homes," said Alistair Darling, Secretary of State for Trade and Industry.

"We are seeing this industry grow by the day. Only two weeks ago we reached the 2GW wind energy landmark, it took more than 10 years to get the first GW less than 20 months to get the second.

Climate Change Minister Ian Pearson said: "We must start moving towards a zero carbon economy now, which involves a significant increase in the uptake of clean technologies, especially renewable energy. Projects like this that expand our capacity to generate clean electricity will play a major role in helping to reduce the UK's carbon dioxide emissions by 60 percent by 2050. "