World's biggest windfarm sets up in Kent

Greenbang is often in Kent for judo classes.

Kent is a brilliant county and  huge. Famous for apples and Charles Darwin’s house, Kent is right next to London, home to a few wine-makers, and now about to house a flippin massive wind-farm.

This from the Guardian:

The world’s largest offshore wind farm, which will occupy a site of 90 square miles off the coast of Kent, has been given the go-ahead by the government and should be ready to provide clean power for a quarter of London’s homes by 2010.

But a sharp increase in costs for the scheme from the original estimate of £1.5bn to closer to £2bn could still push it off course. Costs have soared while the London Array project has been delayed 18 months because of local opposition to an electricity sub-station near Faversham.

The consortium developing the wind farm, which is led by Shell and Eon, is reluctant to comment on the ambitious plan for up to 341 turbines until it has tied up a range of commercial contracts and received approval from National Grid to provide new high- powered overhead cables. A spokesman for Eon confirmed that the last regulatory hurdle was overcome yesterday: “We are now in the middle of the tendering process and we will be in a position to give the green light – or not – in the second half of next year.”

We missed this one, but EcoGeek picked up on it.