Plans to extend a wind farm off the Suffolk-Essex coast are set to enter a new phase with the launch of a six-week public consultation exercise.
Although still in its early stages, Five Estuaries would be an addition to the existing Galloper Offshore Wind farm, a £1.5bn scheme providing 353MW of energy from 30km off the coast.
The proposal involves landfall for the cables at a point between Frinton-on-Sea and Holland-on=Sea with three possible sites for a substation inland south of Lawford.
The total area involved in the new project would be around 149km sq. It would be built by the same partnership of companies which constructed Galloper - including a Macquarie-led consortium (25%), RWE (25%), Siemens’ financing arm, Siemens Financial Services (25%), ESB (12.5%) and Sumitomo Corporation (12.5%), with RWE leading the project.
The developers have stressed that the scheme is still in the early stages of development and that it is too early to say what type of turbines or how many will be considered for the wind farm - which will follow a detailed design project taking into consideration all the offshore infrastructure including offshore substation(s) and cable, it said.
However, RWE has indicated it could feature up to 79 turbines across two separate seabeds, and that the expected capital investment would be around £1.5bn, with the potential to power up to 380k average UK households.
A six-week virtual online public exhibition began on June 30 and two "live" public events are planned for mid-July at venues close to the proposed infrastructure.
The first is on Wednesday, July 13, from 3pm to 8pm at St Mary’s Parish Church Hall, Old Road, Frinton-on-Sea. The second is on Thursday, July 14, from 2pm to 8pm at Ogilvie Hall, Wignall Street, Lawford.
Developers said the site of the onshore infrastructure "will be chosen dependent on a number of factors and constraints and we will work closely with the local community, local councils and interested parties throughout this process".
"The online platform and the live events will provide the community with the opportunity to find out more about the proposed development, to ask any questions and to feed into the design evolution," they added.
Emerging proposals can be seen at www.fiveestuaries.co.uk
The Five Estuaries’ team will be on hand at the two live events to answer questions and to listen to what residents have to say. "We welcome all members of the community to drop into an event and talk to us," developers said.
If approved, they hope the wind farm will be operational by around 2030.
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