The U.K. government has approved the construction of the 580 MW Race Bank and 560 MW Dudgeon offshore wind farms off the Norfolk Coast, according to the Department of Energy and Climate Change.
However, a third proposed wind farm off the Norfolk Coast, Docking Shoal, was rejected out of environmental concerns for legally protected ‘seabirds,’ the agency notes.
‘The U.K. is racing ahead of the global field, and these two new offshore wind farms underline this momentum,’ says Charles Hendry, minister of state for energy. ‘We have also shown that we are mindful of other consequences, such as the impact on bird populations, in deciding that it would not be appropriate to consent all three applications.’
According to the government, the U.K. now has 6.6 GW of offshore wind farms built, under construction or approved to date. According to a renewable energy study published last year, the U.K. has the potential for 18 GW of offshore wind capacity by 2020.
