UK seas ideal for massive wind power expansion

Offshore turbines get government green light on environmental grounds

There’s plenty of room for wind power offshore. Massive expansion, essential if the UK is to meet its renewable energy goals for 2020, should not be scuppered by environmental objections. That’s the headline message from a major study of the marine environment, based on over a year of research, and recently put out for public consultation by the Department of Energy and Climate Change.

The study is part of the department’s offshore energy Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA), which also covers oil and gas drilling and storage, for the territorial waters off England and Wales. It looked at everything from seabed geology to bird and marine species’ habitat and the impact on the fishing and shipping industries. The wind power industry, currently lining up for site leases from the Crown Estate in the so-called Round Three offshore development programme, welcomed its clear conclusion that there is scope for between 5,000 and 7,000 more turbines. Nick Medic of the British Wind Energy Association called it a “subtle but powerful” message that would make it difficult for objectors to block planning applications on environmental grounds.

In Scotland, the Crown Estate has recently signed “exclusivity agreements” with its chosen developers for ten of the most promising offshore wind farm sites, so that they can go ahead with survey work, pending the completion in early 2010 of a similar SEA for offshore wind within Scottish territorial waters. – Roger East

23 April 2009

Roger East