Dong Energy begins huge wind farm consultation
DONG Energy, a Danish energy company which owns the huge Walney Offshore Wind Farm off the Cumbrian/Lancastrian coast line, is to begin a series of consultation exercises next month ahead of plans for a major extension.
The company is planning to virtually double the size of its wind farm to around 1.6m sq ft. It said that the extra turbines would generate an extra 2.8m kilowatt-hours (kWh), which will be enough to power more than 657,000 homes.
In total, the site would have a capacity of 100MW, which makes it a Nationally Strategic Infrastructure Project (NSIP), which will have to be determined by the government’s Infrastructure Planning Committee.
The firm said that it has chosen the site as it achieves a good average wind speed, has suitable water depths and good seabed contitions for the turbine foundations. It proposes to link the site, which is 19km west of Walney Island and 31km south east of the Isle of Man, via a series of underground cables which will come ashore via Half Moon Bay near Heysham or at Middleton Sands in Lancashire.
Dong Energy’s Statement of Community Consultation document states that a number of commercial stakeholders could potentially be impacted including ferry companies, pipeline owners and operators, the fishing industry and oil & gas interests.
“We will engage with the different users of the marine environment through their existing clubs and associations, and are providing a dedicated fisheries industries contact,” it said.
Meetings will be held at Barrow-in-Furness on September 9, at Egremont Market on September 10, at Middleton Parish Hall in Lancashire on September 12, in Blackpool on Septeber 13 (St John’s Community Hall) at at Villa Marina in Douglas on the Isle of Man on September 15.
Interested parties will then need to submit their responses by October 31 before a second round of consultation takes place next summer. A third round of events featuring its consultation report are scheduled for early 2013.
