February 6, 2007
U.K.
U.K.
A plan for a new £400 million offshore wind farm has been received by Boston Borough Council.
Centrica Energy, based in Middlesex and a parent company of British Gas, submitted the planning application on Wednesday, having targeted an area of The Wash it wants to build in.
If granted, it would mean one of the UK’s next generation of offshore wind farms would appear here.
Centrica spokesperson Andrew Hanson told The Standard: “The sea beds in the area are good for the project, and The Wash also has useful areas of shallow water.
“We are hoping to gain planning consent this year or early in 2008, and have a few dates available to move the project forward.
“It is difficult to put a cost on something like this ““ but a ball-park figure for the whole project would be around £400 million.
“We will have to work out if it is viable for us, as it is not a dead cert yet that we will be going ahead to build it, but if we did we would be looking at getting things in place by 2009.”
The company says research carried out in Lincolnshire showed that nearly 85 per cent of people surveyed were in support of the development.
Centrica says it plans to invest more than £750 million in renewable energy assets over the coming years, and has also submitted the application for the 250MW Lincs project to the Department for Trade and Industry.
The plan for the wind farm came about after the company carried out a full environmental impact assessment on the site, five miles off the coast of the Boston area.
Centrica says the wind farm would be capable of supplying clean electricity to around 140,000 British Gas customers ““ saving 565,000 tonnes of CO2 in one year.
Power from the offshore wind farm would come ashore in north Norfolk via undersea power cables.
l The planned site is adjacent to the company’s Lynn and Inner Dowsing projects in the Greater Wash, which are expected to start construction during 2007 when key contracts are finalised.
05 February 2007
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2007/02/06/400m-wash-wind-power-plan-in-the-air/