The first turbine installation at the Greater Gabbard Offshore Wind Farm.; EADT 19.5.10; ES 21.5.10
Suffolk: Wind farm Greater Gabbard produces first green power
By Sara McCorquodale
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
9:08 AM
Suffolk’s Greater Gabbard wind farm has generated electricity for the first time, the project developer has revealed.
Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) powered up three of the North Sea development’s offshore 140 turbines at the end of 2010.
A spokesman for SSE said: “This is great news for Suffolk and has been a really positive step forward for the project. Having Greater Gabbard is fantastic for the county.”
Construction of the farm - 15 miles off the coast of Sizewell - began in 2009 and is set to be completed by 2012. When it is operating fully, the offshore construction has the potential to power 530,000 homes.
The spokesman said “progress is steady” and the next update on the £1.3billion development is scheduled for March.
Judy Terry - Greenest County councillor for Suffolk Council - has labelled this latest breakthrough a “massive advancement” for green energy and Greater Gabbard.
“This shows what can be achieved when people have belief in a project and take action,” she said.
“Sustainable energy is the future for Suffolk and the rest of the country. I suspect this will create thousands of jobs in the county.”
She added: “I think this and green industries will invigorate Suffolk’s economy and broaden its skills base.”
Since 2009 Greater Gabbard has created 100 jobs - from engineering to administrative posts - at the wind farm’s operation and maintenance base in Lowestoft.
Wind farm in planning, East Anglia ONE, will also generate employment for “many hundreds of people”, said program director Jason Martin.
He revealed the development - which is a joint venture between ScottishPower Renewables and Vattenfall Vindkraft - will require a local operations and construction team in addition to administration staff.
The 246-turbine farm off the coast of Lowestoft and Yarmouth will provide energy for four million homes and construction is scheduled to begin in 2014.
Martin said: “This will put East Anglia at the centre of future renewable energy initiatives. There are programmes moving forward in Holland and Germany and being involved in this will give people a chance to develop real expertise they can export,”
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3 comments
What a complete fiasco! The cost per generated kilowatt hour of these contraptions is vastly more than the more reliable systems such as coal, gas and nuclear and has to be funded by subsidies or feed-in tariffs paid for by the taxpayer or consumer. Additional expensive and inefficient oil-fired systems have to be installed ready to accommodate the fluctuating demand, and the other three systems still have to be built to accommodate days such as today: dead calm and cold in the middle of winter. I don't yet know if these are monumental follies, totems of a new world religious doomsday sect, or part of a massive global scam. Either way, a sound investment today would be a stock of candles ready for January 2015. While windpower is fine for irrigation and draining of the Fens, where there is no need to transmit electricity and it does not matter if the wind doesn't blow for a few weeks at a time, its attempted use for electrical power generation in a country sitting on a mountain of coal is a massive blunder.
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Roy Everett
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Excellent news about Greater Gabbard. Now can we please start seeing a move toward Sizewell C? Wind alone is not going to keep the lights on.
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Jason Ford
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Wonderful news. Shame the ignorant cannot seem to see the benefit of having these on land,eg maintenance costs are slashed. We are behind our neighbours in this area due to old fashioned values (land values mainly!). These turbines are a way forwards and the perfect chance for our generation to reduce our carbon footprint, this can only benefit future generations. Unfortunately it seems that the few who own the land, are more concerned with money than their childrens chance of growing up in a cleaner environment.
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richie w
Wednesday, January 19, 2011