The 1 billion pound ($1.58 billion) Walney wind farm is a joint venture between utilities DONG Energy, SSE and OPW, a consortium of the Dutch pension fund service provider PGGM and Ampere Equity Fund.
The companies claim Walney is the world’s biggest offshore windfarm, with 102 wind turbines, each with a capacity of 3.6 MW. It was the first UK offshore wind farm to receive investment from a pension fund service provider and equity fund before it had been built.
Britain has more than 1.5 gigawatts (GW) of installed offshore wind power and plans to raise the capacity to 18 GW by 2020.
However, offshore wind has been criticised for being too expensive. The government wants to reduce the price of generating energy from offshore wind to around 110 pounds/MW from the current 150 pounds/MW by 2020 so it can reach its capacity target.
Some companies are trying to bring down the cost to make offshore wind competitive.
Last October, the government announced that offshore wind farms will receive subsidies until 2015, which will subsequently
be reduced by 5 percent. Onshore wind farms, which are less costly to build, will see subsidies cut gradually by 10 percent.
More than 100 members of parliament wrote to the Prime Minister at the weekend, urging that subsidies paid to the wind industry are cut due to inefficient and intermittent energy production and in a climate of economic constraint.
– source reuters.com