May 21, 2008
U.K.

SSE chief says UK needs more big wind farms

Britain needs to build four major wind farms a year, each as big as utility Scottish & Southern Energy’s landmark Greater Gabbard project, to meet European renewable energy targets by 2020, SSE’s chief executive said on Wednesday.

The European Union says Britain should get 15 percent of all its energy from renewable sources by 2020 but Ian Marchant said at the current rate Britain would only be able to get about 5 to 7 percent of its energy from renewable sources by then.

“The solution is to explore offshore wind. To meet the target we are going to need 25 gigawatts of offshore wind power,” he said.

Last week Scottish & Southern Energy said work would begin soon on the 1.3 billion pounds Greater Gabbard project, the world’s largest offshore wind farm. Power generation at the 504 megawatt development, off Britain’s east coast, is due to start in 2011.

(Reporting By Bate Felix and Raissa Kasolowsky; Editing by Greg Mahlich)

Reuters

21 May 2008


URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2008/05/21/sse-chief-says-uk-needs-more-big-wind-farms/