London Array: World’s Largest Wind Farm Now Fully Operational

The London Array has officially taken the title of the world’s largest wind farm as 630 megawatts of turbines went online in the Thames estuary on Tuesday. This is the final step in the construction of the massive wind farm, which has been in progress since March 2011. Just six months ago, the first Siemens turbine was turned on, providing 3.6 megawatts of power.

“As we now look to our pipeline of future projects, DONG Energy is determined to drive down the costs of our offshore wind farms to €100 per megawatt hour for projects we’ll be sanctioning in 2020,” said Benj Sykes, DONG Energy’s UK manager. “What we have learnt at London Array, together with our continuing focus on innovation in technologies and techniques, will help us achieve that.”

RenewableUK’s chief executive Maria McCaffery has also played a large role in the execution, ensuring the government supported the offshore wind farm through a new Energy Bill.

“To hold on to the UK’s global lead in offshore wind, it’s vital that we maintain this momentum,” she said. “We must ensure that the crucial legislation going through Parliament right now – the Energy bill – sets a rock-solid framework to encourage investment in renewables.”

Of course it won’t be too long before Japan takes the lead with its upcoming 1GW wind farm in Fukushima, but that is not scheduled to happen until 2020. The UK has at least a few years to bask in the glory of first place, unless bigger one is completed somewhere else.

Image via Londonarray