Liverpool Bay becomes home of world’s most powerful offshore wind turbines

World’s biggest and most powerful commercial wind turbines started producing energy near Liverpool. The windmills are 195 meters tall and will power over 200,000 homes.

The Burbo Bank Extension Project, a new offshore wind farm in Liverpool Bay, is open for business. The wind farm has the world’s biggest and most powerful commercial turbines.

The windmills are 195 metres tall, higher than London’s Gherkin tower, and each blade weighs 35 metric tonnes and measures 80 meters and with one rotation it is able to power a house for 29 hours.

And the turbines also hold another first title. The blades, equivalent to 9 double decker buses in length, are the first locally built blades to be installed at a UK offshore wind farm. They have been designed, tested, and manufactured on the Isle of Wight and assembled at MHI Vestas’ facility in Belfast.

The wind farm has 32 giant turbines covering 40m² and will produce enough green energy to power 230,000 homes.

“The inauguration of Burbo Bank Extension represents a noteworthy milestone in the history of MHI Vestas and our stakeholders. We are extremely proud to supply 32 of our 8 MW turbines to DONG Energy and help provide renewable energy for more than 230,000 UK homes,” said Vestas CEO.

The wind farm is a joint venture between Dong Energy, with 50 per cent, and its partners PKA and Kirkbi A/S, the parent company of the LEGO Group, each with 25 per cent. The farm is expected to produce 258 MW and Dong Energy sees it as a new technological achievement.

“Less than ten years ago at Burbo Bank, we were the first to install Siemens 3.6-MW wind turbines and in this short time, the wind turbines have more than doubled in capacity,” said Dong Energy CEO.”Pushing innovation in this way reduces the cost of electricity from offshore wind and will help to advance the offshore wind industry across the world.”

.@DONGEnergyUK new Burbo Bank 2 wind farm in #Liverpool Bay officially launched today. Biggest wind turbines in the world. @BBCNWT 1.30 pic.twitter.com/Vs2RkdmyAZ

— Andy Gill (@MerseyHack) May 17, 2017

The new turbines have been added as an extension to the initial Burbo Bank wind farm which produced enough power for 180,000 homes. Dong Energy has other seven operational wind farms in the U.K with the London Array having the largest capacity, being able to power 560,000 UK homes annually.

Three other wind farms are in construction with the Hornsea Project One being the largest in the world. Located off the Yorkshire coast, Hornsea Project One will span a huge area of approximately 407 square kilometres, which is over five times the size of the city of Hull. The offshore wind farm will use 7 megawatt (MW) wind turbines, with each one 190 metres tall. With a capacity of 1.2 gigawatts (GW), Hornsea Project One will be the world’s first offshore wind farm to exceed 1 GW in capacity.

According to Carbon Brief, last year, for the first time, wind has surpassed coal in energy production. As production costs go lower, experts in the field believe that wind and solar energy production will continue to rise.

The United States, the leader in new solar energy production alongside China and Japan in 2016, just opened up its first offshore wind farm, off the coast of Rhode Island.