World’s largest wind farm: Thanet officially open

As the ferry approached the offshore wind farm guests flocked to the deck for the best view. 100 V90 3.0MW wind turbines placed beautifully at sea are indeed an impressive sight – and not one that many are lucky to see up close.

The guests on board the ferry concurred and talk fell on the sheer size of the wind turbines, the seemingly shifting colours as a result of the changing skies and on the magnificent potential the wind farm represents.

Rt. Honerable Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Chris Huhne and Øystein Løseth, President and CEO of Vattenfall spoke to the guests on the major importance of the Thanet Offshore Wind Farm as a prime example of what the UK needs to see more of in order to meet their 15% target for renewable energy in 2020.

Among the guests at the opening were also Ditlev Engel, Henrik Nørremark and the Vestas Wind Systems Board of Directors who had all been invited to take a closer look at offshore wind power in operation. Gathering from the look upon their faces they too found the experience valuable and impressive.

President of Vestas Offshore Anders Søe-Jensen, also present and hosting the visit from executive management and Board of Directors, was a proud man.

“I am extremely proud of the work the Vestas Offshore wind energy project team has carried out at Thanet having installed 100 wind turbines in less than 100 days – all to the benefit of the customer. Seeing the turbines is operation today is very satisfactory and I congratulate the team once again for a work well done. This type of project execution is indeed world class”.

A new milestone in offshore wind energy was reached today as the world’s largest offshore wind farm opened off the east coast of the UK. Once Thanet is online, the amount of electricity generated by wind power in the UK will reach nearly 5 GW – or enough to power 3 million homes.

www.vestas.com