Rampion Wind Farm progress for E.ON
Round 3 will see a huge increase of offshore wind farms in UK waters. Photo: Peter Barker.
Wind farm developer E.ON Climate and Renewables UK has provided an update on progress with their proposed Round 3 wind farm off the UK south coast.
It includes news of an application for permission to erect a 100m meteorological mast, and being on the verge of carrying out detailed environmental studies and local community consultations.
In January 2010, The Crown Estate announced the names of development partners for nine UK Round 3 offshore wind zones, whereby E.ON Climate and Renewables UK obtained the exclusivity agreement for the Hastings zone. Named Rampion Offshore Wind Farm (after the county flower of Sussex) by students at a local high school, the zone covers an area of 271km², 13 to 15km offshore in water depths between 19 and 62m and is expected to have a capacity of around 650MW. The site’s relative proximity to the shore is allowing work to progress reasonably quickly and with the suitability of nearby ports always an important consideration, Newhaven, Brighton, Shoreham-by-Sea and Littlehampton (nearest ports between Beachy Head and Selsey Bill), will all be eyeing the opportunities arising from the development.
Two offshore substations will transfer power to a shore substation at Bolney in Sussex. An application for planning consent is expected to be submitted in the spring of 2012, installation work commencing in 2014 with the wind farm becoming fully operational in 2016.
Together with the other Round 3 sites, The Crown Estate is taking a more prominent role than previous rounds by co-investing with developers during the planning and consent stages, after which the investment will stop. This arrangement is intended to assist development and deliver efficiencies through The Crown Estate’s access to resources and stakeholders.
Global engineering and design consultancy WS Atkins has been involved in the design of a number of wind farm met masts in the UK, including, on behalf of Forewind, the mast for another Round 3 wind farm zone, Dogger Bank off the Yorkshire coast, and the NAREC Demonstrator Project Monitoring Station. They are now also undertaking work for E.ON with the Rampion met mast that will collect data on wind speed, wave heights and sea currents.
The Rampion wind farm is currently the only Round 3 wind farm E.ON is involved in, being 100% owned by the company. It is, however, now well established elsewhere in the UK offshore wind farm industry, owning a 50% share in the 630MW (phase one) Round 2 London Array wind farm, destined to become the world’s largest offshore wind farm once operational. It also owns and operates three other wind farms: the UK’s first offshore wind farm at Blyth in Northumberland (4MW), the Round 1, Scroby Sands wind farm off Great Yarmouth (30MW), and the 180MW Robin Rigg project in the Solway Firth. E.ON has also been granted planning approval for the Round 2, 230MW, Humber Gateway wind farm north of the entrance to the Humber estuary.
By Peter Barker
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