The largest offshore wind farm in the world is now fully operational 55 miles off the Yorkshire coast.
The Hornsea 2 project can generate enough electricity to power around 1,300,000 houses, which is enough to power Manchester.
Before a decade, renewables comprised only 11% of the UK’s energy mix. By 2021, offshore wind accounted for the biggest portion, at 40 percent.
Hornsea 2 is a part of Orsted’s massive wind farm development.
Patrick Harnett, program director for the Hornsea 2 wind farm, told that the United Kingdom is a global leader in offshore wind.
It is really exciting that the world’s largest offshore wind farm is now in full commercial operation after five years of hard effort.
Hornsea 2 has overtaken its neighbor Hornsea 1 as the “world’s largest” wind farm. It is roughly four and a half times the size of Liverpool. With larger development projects close to the North Sea, it is unlikely that the title will stay long.
Each of the 165 turbines in Hornsea 2 is approximately 200 meters tall, measured from sea level to the top of its 81-meter-long blades. A single rotation, according to Mr. Harnett, takes six seconds and generates enough energy to power a home for a day.
The growing size of wind farms and turbines over the past decade has helped to reduce the cost of the electricity they generate.
The last time I checked, it cost approximately £450 per megawatt hour to purchase gas-generated electricity, according to Simon Evans of Carbon Brief, a website that covers renewable energy concerns.
This is approximately nine times the current cost of building new renewable capacity.
In the most recent round of auctions held by the British government in July, 11 gigawatts of renewable energy were commissioned, enough to power around 12 million homes. As part of its Net Zero goals, the government has pledged to decarbonize power generation by 2035, with the offshore wind playing a key role.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine precipitated the current global energy crisis, which has accelerated the quest for alternatives to gas-fired power plants. There are no quick fixes available.
From planning approval to full operation, offshore wind projects need approximately five years, and some argue that the magnitude of the current energy crisis necessitates a reconsideration of building wind farms onshore.
Traditionally, onshore wind has been the cheapest kind of energy, and it can be operational within a year,” Melanie Onn of Renewable UK told.
We are not doing this because the planning procedure permits a single person to protest an onshore wind farm, which shuts down the entire project. Therefore, we need the government to take action and prioritize our country’s energy needs.
