World's largest offshore windfarm Horns Rev 2 to go on stream

Danish utility, Dong Energy's offshore wind farm, Horns Rev 2, is all set to go on stream on Thursday at a site 30 kilometers off the coast of Denmark. The 91- turbine wind farm billed as the largest such facility in the world is projected to generate 209 megawatts, enough to power 200,000 households for a year.

Chief executive Dong Energy, Anders Eldrup, told Green Inc that the project was historic and added that the offshore farm would remain the biggest in world for some time.
He added the project cost was about $1 billion.

Offshore projects have been plagued by the problem of corrosion, which has proved to be difficult to be keep under control and the fact that offshore wind sites are more expensive to build and maintain that onshore sites only adds to the problem.

But according to Eldrup, utilities like Dong Energy are determined to push offshore wind generation as Western Europe being densely populated it was getting increasingly difficult to get permission to set up projects on shore.

According to Andris Piebalgs, the European Union energy commissioner a study by the European Wind Energy Association has shown that offshore wind could emerge as the dominant source of employment in the sector in Europe by 2025, providing 200,000 jobs.

New research findings have revealed from studies conducted by the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) have shown that the existing and planned European offshore wind projects could potentially supply 10 per cent of Europe's electricity.