ScottishPower Renewables has awarded what is thought to be Europe’s largest single-project wind turbine contract, with the development of the giant East Anglia One offshore wind farm having cleared its final hurdle.

German group Siemens has won a contract including both the supply of 102 turbines, to be located around 26 miles off the coast, and a five-year service agreement.

The deal, worth up to one-third of the overall £2.5billion cost of the project, was agreed on the same day that the Government-owned Low Carbon Contracts Company confirmed that ScottishPower Renewables has met the conditions of its Contract For Difference (CFD) agreement on the price of energy generated by the scheme.

This confirmed that the project will be delivered at a price of £119/MWh (megawatt hour) which ScottishPower Renewables says makes East Anglia One the best value offshore wind farm anywhere in the world, representing a reduction of 20% compared with previous developments built around the UK.

The 75-metre blade turbines will each have a capacity of 7megawatts (MW), giving the array a total installed capacity of 714MW – enough to power more than 500,000 homes a year based on average production and consumption rates.

The blades will be fabricated at Siemens’ new factory in Hull, with £5million also to be invested in the harbour at Great Yarmouth which has been selected as the pre-assembly port for the installation of the turbines.

Construction work is due to start next year with the first turbines to be installed by 2019 and the completed project due to become fully operational during 2020. Lowestoft has already been selected as the operational base for the wind farm, under a deal announced last year.

Keith Anderson, chief executive of ScottishPower Renewables, said: “We have concluded Europe’s largest project-specific wind turbine agreement just a month after taking our final investment decision, and we have scaled the final hurdle by satisfying our CFD conditions with the Low Carbon Contracts Company. It is now full steam ahead for East Anglia ONE, with ground set to be broken early next year.

“East Anglia ONE is the first of up to four projects we would like to build in the southern North Sea, and we hope that our plans will stimulate jobs and investment for the UK and across the region for decades to come.”