The UK's seas could provide enough extra wind energy to power the equivalent of 19 million homes, an assessment by the Government showed today.

The Government's strategic environmental assessment (Sea) confirmed projections that an extra 25GW of electricity generation capacity could be accommodated in UK waters.

This would be in addition to the 8GW of wind power already built or planned offshore, bringing the potential total electricity capacity of offshore wind to 33GW - enough to power every household in the UK.

According to the Government, offshore wind has the potential to meet more than a quarter of the UK's electricity needs, provide the UK with up to 70,000 new jobs and generate £8 billion a year in revenue.

The findings of the Sea mean the Crown Estate can push ahead with round three of leasing UK waters for offshore wind farms.

Under round three, the Estate has earmarked 11 areas which have the potential to be viable offshore wind sites, due to the levels of wind, water depth and potential connection to the grid, and taking in shipping and environmental concerns.

The Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) and energy regulator Ofgem also announced today they were opening the tendering process to companies to provide the £15 billion of new cabling needed to connect new wind farms.

Energy and Climate Change Minister Lord Hunt said: "Offshore wind is fundamental to delivering our target of 15% renewable energy by 2020, and looking ahead to reducing our carbon emissions by 80%."

He said wind power presented a "huge opportunity" for the UK industry.

"We're already the world's number one offshore wind power. With the right support, we can grow the industry even further, supporting tens of thousands of high value, green manufacturing jobs."

Maria McCaffery, chief executive of the British Wind Energy Association, said the "extremely ambitious" target could result in every home in the UK being powered by offshore wind farms by 2020 - if the right infrastructure was put in place.

She told BBC Radio Four's Today programme: "In order to achieve this very ambitious target, we have some supply chain issues to overcome and we need a grid and infrastructure that is capable of bringing all this electricity into the UK."

continue reading

source: Dash.com