First offshore power

Electricity has been generated from the first of the 51 turbines that Walney 1 Offshore Wind Farm will consist of eventually. The construction of Walney 1 began in March 2010, and all turbines in the wind farm have now been installed, and will be commissioned over the coming months. The second phase of the project, Walney 2, also with 51 turbines, will begin installation in March 2011 and is expected to be fully operational by the end of 2011. Once fully operational, the wind farms will employ around 60 people.

The Walney Wind Farms are located appr. 15km west of Barrow-in-Furness and they will each comprise 51 turbines. When fully operational, the Walney 1 and 2 wind farms, owned by DONG Energy (50.1%), Scottish & Southern Energy (25.1%) and a consortium of PGGM and Dutch Ampère Equity Fund, managed by Triodos Investment Management (24.8%), will have a capacity of 367.2MW of CO2-free renewable energy production, enough to power around 320,000 homes or one-and-a-half times the number of homes in Cumbria.