THE company behind plans to build one of the largest offshore wind projects in the world today spoke of the potential of Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth ports in its construction and operation.

East Anglia Offshore Wind, a joint venture between ScottishPower Renewables and Vattenfall, announced that it has signed a memorandum of understanding with both Associated British Ports, which owns the Port of Lowestoft, and International Port Holdings (IPH), owner of Great Yarmouth Port Company.

This means the company will now enter into discussions with local authorities to investigate the potential of the two towns and their ports for the project.

The proposed development could deliver 7,200 MW of offshore wind capacity, and would meet the equivalent electricity needs of over five million UK households.

East Anglia Offshore Wind programme director Jason Martin said: “Our discussions with local port operators demonstrate the strong offshore energy support services and experience in the region and we are currently building our technical and economic case to allow our construction and operations activities to be focused on this part of the country.

He added: “We really are focused on East Anglia and our intention will be that we create construction and operations jobs in East Anglia. It is not something we are being virtuous about. It costs money to get to the sites and we would prefer to be local to our operation. We see ports that have the technical capabilities..”

The 7.2GW development will be built in several sections with the proposed first project, expected to start in 2015, will consist of approximately 240 turbines.

It is proposed that the first project will be located 42 kilometres offshore and will have the capacity to generate up to 1.2GW of clean, green energy.

Last July ScottishPower Renewables and Vattenfall, awarded Great Yarmouth company, Gardline Hydro a multi million pound contract to conduct seabed surveys on the first section of the site.