UK Approves Building of Major Offshore Wind Farm

The British government has approved construction of a 500-megawatt offshore wind farm in Cumbria, northwest England, the government said on Thursday.

It said the Duddon Sands farm, planned near Walney Island off the coast of Barrow-in-Furness, was one of the country’s three largest offshore wind farms approved so far. It would comprise up to 139 turbines.
Morecambe Wind Ltd, a consortium of Scottish Power, Eurus Energy from Japan and Denmark’s state-controlled DONG Energy, is to build and operate the farm.

An industry official said it would take several years to build a wind farm of this scale and that it would require investment of well over 1 billion pounds (US$1.8 billion).

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