The largest offshore wind farm in the world has just been put online

The United Kingdom is fast becoming the epicenter of the offshore wind industry. A case in point: Monday, the first part of the largest and most distant offshore wind farm in the world has been put online.

The first workers were transferred 75 miles off the east coast of Grimsby, UK, to the partially operational Hornsea One wind farm. When it will be fully online next year, it will be able to generate enough electricity to power one million homes. At present, it is "alone" able to power up to 287,000 homes. But the opening of the farm, associated with the construction projects of a giant twin nearby, shows that offshore wind is growing by leaps and bounds.

At present, 50 out of 174 wind turbines are in rotation in the wind farm. When completed, the project will have a production capacity of 1.2 gigawatts, more than double the capacity of the largest offshore wind facility currently in place (also in the UK). Because of its distance from the shore, the operating team will spend four weeks at sea before returning to port, where another team will leave in its place.

"The operation of a wind farm as far offshore is unprecedented," said David Coussens, deputy director of wind farm operations, at the Offshore Wind specialty magazine. "We had to be creative and find new ways of working to overcome the technical and logistical challenges associated with operating a huge power plant located 120 km from the coast, roughly at the same distance as Grimsby and Leeds! "

The turbines are located in the North Sea, a well-known free-flowing open water area where some of the other major wind farms in the world operate. They feed the UK, as well as the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and the Scandinavian countries. But of all the countries that operate wind farms in the North Sea, the United Kingdom uses the most energy.

In a report released Sunday, Wind Europe showed that the UK has the largest offshore wind generation capacity in Europe. The country has a production capacity of 8.2 gigawatts, or 44% of the offshore wind capacity in Europe. All this capacity is one of the main reasons why the UK managed to wean itself off coal for longer and longer.

It is also shameful to other countries and perhaps not more embarrassing than the United States, which has only 30 megawatts (or 0.03 gigawatts) if you want to feel even more transatlantic shame. ) offshore wind capacity. The help may well come, however, after the Trump administration hosted the most successful offshore wind auction in the US late last year. Coastal states like New York, New Jersey and other countries have also set ambitious targets to get more electricity from the windy high seas. They are therefore unlikely to consume the dust blown by turbines at sea for a long time in the UK.