09 July 2009 09:44
The answer is blowing in the wind at the proposed Humber Gateway wind farm

E.ON, one of the UK's leading power and gas companies, has announced that it will be taking the next step in its investigations into a potential wind farm in the Humber Estuary by installing an anemometry mast.

The mast, used to measure wind speeds and other offshore environmental data, will be around 85m in height and is due to be installed 7km off the Holderness Coast.

Vaughan Weighill, Humber Gateway development manager, said: "This is an exciting prospect. Our initial assessments of the site have shown that this is an ideal location for a wind farm, the offshore mast will collect valuable wind speed data that will help to confirm this, as well as measuring wave heights and sea currents which will feed into the engineering design of the wind farm project."

"We've also been in discussions with the fishing community and other users of the sea to make them aware of the works and to ensure the installation will not interfere in their day-to-day work in any way"

Early estimations for the site have shown that the wind farm will have the capacity to provide up to 195,000 homes* with clean, renewable energy, which is more than one and a half times the number of homes in Hull, with a total generating capacity of up to 300MW.

The UK has a long term goal of cutting its CO₂ emissions by between 60 and 80 per cent by 2050 as part of the Kyoto agreement signed by all European member states. The UK government has also committed to providing 15% of the UK's generation capacity from renewables by 2010.

Vaughan said: "This development could not only help the country meet these tough renewable and carbon emission reduction targets, but also but also help to provide a clean, secure supply of energy for East Yorkshire."

The Humber Gateway wind farm would have up to 83 turbines across an area of 35 square kilometres, with the potential to displace up to 395,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide every year. That's the equivalent of taking 110,000 cars off Britain's roads.

Applications for the wind farm were submitted in April 2008 to central government for the offshore works, and to East Riding of Yorkshire Council for the onshore underground cable to connect into the national grid.

For further information about the site and to keep an eye on all of the latest developments, please visit

http://eon-uk.com/generation/humbergateway.aspx

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* Based on an average annual domestic household consumption of 4,725 kWh (Source BERR)

Notes to editors

• E.ON is one of the UK's leading power and gas companies - generating and distributing electricity, and retailing power and gas - and is part of the E.ON group, one of the world's largest investor-owned power and gas companies. We employ around 17,000 people in the UK and over 93,000 worldwide;
• We are a market leader in combined heat and power, providing our customers with around 600MW of electricity and more than 1,000MW of heat at 13 sites across the country;
• We're one of the leading green generators in the UK, with 21 wind farms located from Cornwall to Northern Ireland. We also burn biomass material mixed with coal in two of our power stations and have recently completed one of the UK's largest dedicated biomass power stations at Lockerbie. Combined, our renewable portfolio generates enough green energy to power the homes in a city the size of Manchester;
• Our green development portfolio could power over a million homes and displace the emission of almost two million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year by building new onshore and offshore wind farms, biomass power stations, and tidal stream and wave power schemes;
• Our target is to cut the carbon released by each kW of electricity we generate by 10% between 2005-2012, having already reduced it by 20% since 1990;
• We have 1,300MW of renewable capacity under development;
• E.ON Group has announced it intends to reduced the carbon intensity of its generation by 50% by 2030 (on 1990 levels);
• E.ON Group aims to spend €6bn on green generation between 2007 and 2010.

For more information contact:

Rebecca Mara on 02476 183 679

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