The wind farm will be installed 7km offshore from Clacton on Sea in the North Thames Estuary and completion is expected by autumn 2009.

Gunfleet Sands will be built in continuation of Dong Energy’s other British offshore wind farms. Barrow, which is already in operation, and Burbo Banks, which is under construction and expected to be completed this year.

Rob Hastings, director of Marine Estates said, ‘The Crown Estate are pleased that we have been able to work with the stakeholders in this project to get it back on track. We are encouraged by Dong Energy’s determination to build the wind farm and we look forward to another 100MW of capacity coming online.

This will bring the total to 700MW of offshore wind generating capacity either already generating or committed for construction, representing over 1% of the UK’s electricity demand and making the UK the world leader in offshore wind energy.

While it has taken nearly ten years to get to this point, with the continued support of developers, suppliers and government, we now expect this to triple over the next five years. Looking even further forward, we are committed to enabling at least 10% of the UK’s electricity to come from the resources of the Marine Estate by 2020.’