In the news yesterday it was anounced that plans for the largest offshore wind farm in the world have been given the go ahead. The wind farm will be sited in the Thames Estuary, 12 miles offshore and will consist of 341 wind turbines. It is hoped that the wind farms will provide enough energy for 1 million homes. Further announcements about plans for more UK offshore wind farms are expected in the future. You can read the full story on the BBC website or on the Guardian website.

This is great news for the UK as it means that we are finally taking advantage of a huge resource. The UK has the windiest coastline in Europe, it has a long stretch of coastline and shallow waters making it ideal for large scale off shore wind turbines, yet we are lagging behind other counties in Europe for installing wind capacity. The installed wind capacity of the UK is only 1.3 GW compared to 17 GW in Germany and 10 GW in Spain.

Hopefully this new announcement and the ones still to come will help us to catch up with the rest of Europe!