UK becomes world leader in offshore wind

The UK has overtaken Denmark to become the world's ‘number one' for wind farms built offshore, with 597MW fully constructed says Mike O'Brien, minister of state at the new Department of Energy and Climate Change. This has been made possible after building work finished at Centrica's Lynn and Inner Dowsing wind farms near Skegness.

Offshore wind farms now have the potential to power the equivalent of around 300,000 UK homes. This follows the prime minister's announcement at the BWEA's October conference, that the UK now gets 3 gigawatts of electricity from windpower.

O'Brien, made the announcement whilst visiting the wind farms off the coast of Skegness: "As the prime minister himself said, we are now getting3 gigawatts of our electricity capacity from wind power. That' enough to power more than 1.5 million homes. Offshore wind makes up 20% of that capacity and the wind farms I am visiting today are the ones that have made the UK the world's number one for offshore windpower, knocking Denmark off the top spot. Offshore wind is hugely important to help realise the government's ambition to dramatically increase the amount of energy from renewable sources. Overtaking Denmark is just the start. There are already five more offshore wind farms under construction that will add a further 938 megawatts to our total by the end of next year. We are also assessing plans to increase the total by a massive 25 gigawatts in the future. That's enough electricity for every home in the country."