Kentish Flats Extension gets Go-ahead

Swedish developer Vattenfall has been given Board approval to proceed with a £150m project to extend the Kentish Flats Offshore Wind Farm. The extension will see an extra 15 turbines added to the existing 30 installed at the site, which lies 8km off the Whitstable and Herne Bay coast.

With the additional turbines, Kentish Farm will be able to generate an extra 49.5MW of electricity, enough to power 42,000 homes. Construction of the onshore works is expected to start towards the end of 2014, with the new turbines being commissioned in late 2015 and early 2016.

Meanwhile, a proposed extension to the Robin Rigg Offshore Wind Farm in the Solway Firth has recently been revived. Local people are being urged to make their views known on the controversial extension, which has already been vetoed once by MSPs back in March 2011.

Wilding says: It’s good to see Vattenfall going ahead with the Kentish Flats extension and let’s hope that a decent proportion of the contracts will be awarded to UK firms. As for Robin Rigg – it looks like the jury’s out on that one!

Sources: The Engineer and BBC