Crown Estate gives green light to offshore wind

13 June 2008

The Crown Estates, which officially owns all the seabed which surrounds the coast of Britain, has announced a major new initiative to expand offshore windfarm capacity. Eleven new farms containing as many as 7,000 turbines are identified in the plan. They will all be built within the next decade and will triple the UK's offshore wind output from to 33GW.

Scottish Renewables boss Jason Ormiston credited the EU for bringing the plan to fruition. "It's an enormous step-change and it's been largely brought about by the EU targets." These targets commit Britain and the rest of the EU to producing 20 percent of energy from renewable sources by 2020.

But Greenpeace's chief climatecampaigner Robin Oakley urged the government to go further,encouraging them to abandon plans for new nuclear power in favour of green energy.

"Offshore wind is a 21st-century, frontier technology that can deliver clean electricity to every home in Britain and secure our energy supplies for years to come," he said. "Our country could be the Saudi Arabia of offshore wind – and John Hutton (the Business and Enterprise Secretary) knows it.

"Instead, he's lost in a nuclear fantasy and flatly refuses to introduce the policies that have delivered huge economic benefits for Germany and Spain, which now lead the world in renewable energy.

"Britain is sitting on a treasure chest of green-collar jobs and clean, renewable energy – now we need to unlock it."

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