Offshore wind farms 'could power 19 million UK homes'

The UK's seas could provide enough extra wind energy to power the equivalent of 19 million homes, an assessment by the Government showed today.

The Government's strategic environmental assessment (Sea) confirmed projections that an extra 25GW of electricity generation capacity could be accommodated in UK waters.

This would be in addition to the 8GW of wind power already built or planned offshore, bringing the potential total electricity capacity of offshore wind to 33GW - enough to power every household in the UK.

According to the Government, offshore wind has the potential to meet more than a quarter of the UK's electricity needs, provide the UK with up to 70,000 new jobs and generate £8 billion a year in revenue.

The findings of the Sea mean the Crown Estate can push ahead with round three of leasing UK waters for offshore wind farms.

Under round three, the Estate has earmarked 11 areas which have the potential to be viable offshore wind sites, due to the levels of wind, water depth and potential connection to the grid, and taking in shipping and environmental concerns.

The Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) and energy regulator Ofgem also announced today they were opening the tendering process to companies to provide the £15 billion of new cabling needed to connect new wind farms.

Energy and Climate Change Minister Lord Hunt said: "Offshore wind is fundamental to delivering our target of 15% renewable energy by 2020, and looking ahead to reducing our carbon emissions by 80%."

He said wind power presented a "huge opportunity" for the UK industry.

"We're already the world's number one offshore wind power. With the right support, we can grow the industry even further, supporting tens of thousands of high value, green manufacturing jobs."

Maria McCaffery, chief executive of the British Wind Energy Association, said the "extremely ambitious" target could result in every home in the UK being powered by offshore wind farms by 2020 - if the right infrastructure was put in place.

She told BBC Radio Four's Today programme: "In order to achieve this very ambitious target, we have some supply chain issues to overcome and we need a grid and infrastructure that is capable of bringing all this electricity into the UK."

A report on offshore wind construction by the BWEA suggests that 9GW of wind power capacity will be built by 2015, with wind overtaking nuclear in terms of installed capacity in the next four to five years.

The BWEA said the Government still needed to create a policy framework for wind, facilitate grid connections and ease supply chain pressures - some of the hurdles offshore wind farms face.

If annual deployment of wind capacity hit 4GW to 5GW per year Europe-wide, prices of installing wind farms could fall by 20%.

"Round three is set to deliver the UK portion of this capacity and the Government must pull out all the stops to accommodate this programme," Ms McCaffery said.

Friends of the Earth's energy campaigner Nick Rau said: "At last the Government is starting to recognise the enormous potential of the UK's offshore wind power and its crucial role in slashing emissions and securing a national energy system based on clean, safe, renewable energy.

"With this new round of investment, offshore wind could supply 25 per cent of the UK's electricity demand.

"Boosting offshore wind power will make the UK a world leader in building a clean and prosperous low-carbon economy - we must urgently tackle the barriers that prevent wind energy from really taking off.

"Ministers must now get the best out of this resource by rapidly developing a new offshore super grid to harness offshore wind, wave and tidal power and stabilise supply and demand by connecting us to a bigger European energy network."