Wednesday, April 10, 2013

  Largest wind farm: London Array breaks Guinness world record (VIDEO)

LONDON, UK -- The London Array project, jointly owned by Dong Energy, Masdar and EON, yesterday announced that the first 630MW phase of the project in the Thames estuary is now fully operational; all 175 of London Array's offshore wind turbines are now fully operational, the project setting the new world record for the Largest wind farm, according to the World Record Academy: www.worldrecordacademy.com/ .

  Photo: London Array, the world's largest offshore wind turbine, is now fully operational with the last of the 175 turbines at the Thames Estuary site, now generating clean electricity. ( enlarge photo )

 The Guinness world record for the largest wind turbine is the Enercon E-126, which has a hub height of 135 m (443 ft) and a rotor diameter of 127 m (416 ft). Its capacity is rated at 6 MW, (or 20 million kilowatt hours each year) - enough to fuel 5,000 households of four in Europe!

  Guinness World Records also recognized the world record for the largest wind chime; it measured 12.80 m (42 ft) long and consisted of five metal tubes which were suspended 14.94 m (49 ft) from the ground. It was made by Jim Bolin (USA) In Casey, Illinois, USA.

  Phase one of London Array covers a 90 km2 area and has a combined capacity of 630 megawatts (MW), enough to power half a million homes.
  It is the culmination of more than two years of offshore construction work by the joint owners of the farm, Dong Energy, E.ON and Masdar. It is claimed it will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by over 900,000 tonnes a year.

  "This is the final major milestone of the construction phase and the culmination of more than two years' offshore construction work which began in March 2011 with the installation of the first foundation," said London Array project director Richard Rigg.

  Benj Sykes, UK manager for DONG Energy's wind business, said the completion of the project was a major achievement, adding that the company was now determined to use the lessons gained from the London Array to reduce the cost of future projects.

 "As we now look to our pipeline of future projects, DONG Energy is determined to drive down the costs of our offshore wind farms to €100 per megawatt hour for projects we'll be sanctioning in 2020," he said.