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Largest offshore wind farm opens off England’s coast
It can power nearly 600,000 homes.
The largest offshore wind farm to date has officially opened off of the Cumbrian coast in the Irish Sea and it has the ability to power 590,000 homes. The 659-megawatt Walney Extension takes up an area roughly the size of 20,000 soccer pitches and is made of 87 wind turbines. “The UK is the global leader in offshore wind and Walney Extension showcases the industry’s incredible success story,” said Matthew Wright, the UK managing director at Ørsted, the Danish company that developed the wind farm. “The project, completed on time and within budget, also marks another important step towards Ørsted’s vision of a world that runs entirely on green energy.”
While Walney Extension may currently be the largest offshore wind farm in the world, it won’t be for long. A number of other larger projects are in the works including ScottishPower’s East Anglia One and Ørsted’s Hornsea Projects One and Two. East Anglia One and Hornsea Project One, which have capacities of 714 megawatts and 1,200 megawatts, respectively, are both scheduled to be operational in 2020. The 1,400-megawatt Hornsea Project Two is scheduled to be operational by 2022 and will be capable of powering 1.8 million homes.