Government consents second giant wind farm

This entry reports on the consenting of the East Anglia Offshore Windfarm (part one).

Yesterday, the government issued its 19th decision on a nationally significant infrastructure project (NSIP) application, deciding to grant development consent for the East Anglia Offshore Windfarm (EAOW, pronounced ee-aw) Project ONE. This would be the second offshore wind farm capable of generating 1.2 gigawatts of power (the promoter's press release only covering the Crown Estate's 'Round 3' of sites), the first being the Triton Knoll wind farm, granted consent nearly a year ago.

The wind farm will be 43km off the coast of East Anglia, roughly due east of Norwich. It is to be followed by projects THREE and FOUR, but there's no sign of TWO yet, and putting the numbers in capitals is a bit SHOUTY.

Interesting points

I've had a quick look at the decision letter and make the following observations.

The panel (uniquely of four inspectors) also recommended approval, but only if a section 106 agreement was first concluded with the local planning authorities about mitigating the impacts of an onshore converter station. The applicant did duly conclude such an agreement, allowing the government to issue its decision in line with that recommendation. Given that recommendations are not published until decisions are made, though, I wonder how such a dependency was conveyed to the promoter in that case, and might be in other cases. It wouldn't be much good to make such a recommendation secretly and then refuse or delay the project for not fulfilling it.

Where the panel and the government did differ, however, was on the number of turbines. The promoter proposed having fewer larger turbines during the examination to reduce environmental impacts such as the risk of bird strike, but the panel decided to recommend the original full number of turbines anyway. The government took a different view and has decided to allow only the smaller number, and has introduced a requirement that each one be at least 5 megawatts rather than the current standard of 3 megawatts to ensure that generating capacity is not sacrificed for environmental mitigation. I note that kittiwakes appear to be twice as likely to collide with the turbines as gannets.

The promoter still doesn't need to build all the turbines, though, as the DCO grants consent for 'up to 240 turbines', but they do have to be at least 5MW each if constructed (except with the government's permission). These are big ol' turbines - they cannot exceed 200m in height, and the Gherkin is only 180m tall.

The decision allows ducts for further phases of the EAOW to be constructed as part of the application as 'associated development'. This is in line with government guidance on the concept and should give subsequent promoters comfort that they can include such things that relate to later projects rather than the current one, as long as the later projects are associated with the current one.

The decision was made one day short of the three months allowed, given that the recommendation was issued by the panel on 18 March. Even though some have taken exactly three months, this is actually the second longest to be taken at 91 days (the Able Marine Energy Park being the longest as the decision period was extended), due to the lengths of the months concerned.

The next decision due will be for the extension of the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal on or before 7 July, followed by the Rampion offshore wind farm ten days later. These were the two that were resubmitted. Conveniently, no recommendations were issued by the Planning Inspectorate during May, so the Secretaries of State can all have August off, but with five decisions due in September, their officials probably can't.