Assessment of the announcement
The Crown Estate’s Round Three offshore wind announcement represents a huge opportunity to secure a clean domestic energy future. The vast programme of wind farm construction is expected to begin in 2014 with construction accelerating after that. It will produce 32 gigawatts total capacity of power, the equivalent of to around 18 new coal fired power stations like that proposed for Kingsnorth in Kent, by shortly after 2020. This is equivalent to 25 per cent of UK demand. It will bring total offshore wind capacity to over 40GW. It will help meet Britain’s EU commitment to produce 15 per cent of energy from renewable sources by 2020 – up from 5.5 per cent today.
