The British government granted development consent for the Hornsea 4 offshore wind farm project on Wednesday.
The project, being developed by Danish wind developer Orsted will be located off the Yorkshire coast in England.
The wind farm will have a capacity of up to 2.6 gigawatts (GW), enough to power the equivalent of over 1 million homes a day if it is built. It forms part of a wider array at the Hornsea site off the Yorkshire coast.
Orsted said it will take a final investment decision on the Hornsea 3 project in the same area, which will have 2.8 GW capacity, later this year.
(Reuters - Reporting by Nina Chestney. Editing by Jane Merriman)
Renewable UK comment:
Commenting on the UK Government’s decision to approve Ørsted’s Hornsea Four offshore wind project off the coast of East Yorkshire, RenewableUK’s Executive Director of Policy Ana Musat said: “It’s great to see one of the UK’s largest offshore wind farms getting the green light from the Government, at a time when we urgently need to get cracking on building new clean energy projects to generate the cheapest power for billpayers and enable us to bolster domestic supply chains.
“Hornsea Four will strengthen Britain’s energy security significantly, helping us to move away from the volatility of international gas prices and closer towards energy independence, as well as enabling us to take a major leap forward towards net zero”.
Hornsea Four is the second largest UK offshore wind project to gain consent. It will have a capacity of up to 2,600MW (up to 180 turbines), which if built in full would provide enough power to meet the average daily needs of over 1 million homes.
Hornsea Three is the biggest UK offshore wind project to be approved to date (2,852MW).
The largest operational offshore wind farm in UK waters, Hornsea Two (1,386MW) was fully commissioned last August. Hornsea One (1,218MW) has been operating since 2020.
