Busy Year ahead for British Offshore Wind Farm Construction

RenewableUK is predicting a busy year of construction activity in offshore wind in 2016, bringing massive economic benefits across the UK. Construction activity is currently underway on six offshore wind projects, with onshore substations being built and cables being laid. These projects have a combined capacity of more than 2.6GW.

Building work will start on another five offshore wind projects during 2016, adding a further 1.9GW. This means that more than 4.5GW of offshore wind capacity will be under construction in 2016 – enough to meet the needs of over 3 million homes. These sites will nearly double the UK’s current offshore capacity of 5.1GW by the time they go fully operational by the end of the decade.

Offshore wind projects in construction in 2016 will generate GBP5.9 billion of investment within the UK over the next five years of development and construction activity.

Onshore

However, onshore construction work beyond next year is under severe threat of curtailment as the Government has withdrawn financial support for future projects. Onshore wind developers are set to install at least 1.2 gigawatts (GW) of new capacity next year, with more than 50 projects going fully operational – enough to power more than 660,000 homes. In terms of the economic benefits to Britain, the onshore wind projects going live in 2016 will generate more than GBP913 million of investment in the UK economy during their development and construction phases.