1.1 GW Inch Cape Wind Farm Entering Offshore Construction Phase
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on offshoreWIND.biz.
This is the sub-heading.
ESB and Red Rock Renewables have reached a financial close on the 1,080 MW Inch Cape offshore wind farm in Scotland, and the project will now progress into its offshore construction phase.
Inch Cape will be a 1.1 GW wind farm, which as this web site/data sheet shows could be capable of generating enough green energy to power more than half of Scotland’s homes.
Highlights from the data sheet include.
- Represents an around £3 billion investment in the UK’s electrical infrastructure
- Will contribute significantly to the UK Government’s target of 50 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind installed capacity by 2030
- Constitutes 10% of the Scottish Government’s ambition of 11 GW of offshore wind installed by 2030
- As at Q1 2025, has already invested almost £300 million with 300 UK companies (more than £100 million in Scotland with 120 Scottish companies)
- Is set to spend a further (approx.) £700 million with UK supply chain (and create associated direct and indirect jobs)
- Efficient re-use of a brownfield site in East Lothian (of former coal-fired power station) including existing grid capacity and established transmission infrastructure
- The offshore substation is being built by Siemnens and Smulders at Wallsend on Tyneside.
- On track to deliver at least 50% UK content over life cycle of the project
- Will mean large investment in a new facility in the Port of Montrose and more than 50 long-term skilled local jobs
- Once operational the wind farm will reduce carbon emissions by 2.5 million tonnes per year compared to using fossil-fuels.
I like this project.
- It has a capacity of 1.1 GW.
- The turbines are 15 MW Vestas units.
- The connection to the grid is at the site of the demolished Cockenzie coal-fired power station.
- 50 % of the content of the £ 3 million project is British, spread among three hundred companies. That is certainly spreading the money around.
- I calculate that, when the turbines are fully turning, the Inch Cape wind farm will generate £ 44, 201.38 per hour or just over a million pounds per day.
I suspect we will be seeing lots more wind farms like this in the next thirty or forty years.
These are currently under construction.
- Neart Na Gaoithe – Scotland – 450 MW
- Sofia – England – 1400 MW
- Dogger Bank A – England – 1235 MW
- Dogger Bank B – England – 1235 MW
- Dogger Bank C – England – 1218 MW
- Moray West – Scotland – 882 MW
- East Anglia 3 – England – 1372 MW
- Total – 7792 MW
These are pre-construction.
- Hornsea 3 – England – 2852 vMW
- Inch Cape – Scotland – 1080 MW
- Total – 3932 MW
These are proposed wind farms – Contracts for difference Round 4
- Norfolk Boreas – Round 1 – 1380 MW
- Total – 1380 MW
These are proposed wind farms – Contracts for difference Round 6
- Hornsea 4 – England – 2400 MW
- East Anglia 2 – England – 963 MW
- Greeen Volt – Scotland – 400 MW
- Total – 3763 MW
These are proposed wind farms – Early Planning
- East Anglia 1 North – England – 800 MW
- Rampion 2 Extension – England – 1200 MW
- Norfolk Vanguard East – 1380 MW
- Norfolk Vanguard West – 1380 MW
- Dogger Bank South – England – 3000 MW
- Awel y Môr – Wales – 500 MW
- Five Estuaries – England – 353 MW
- North Falls – England – 504 MW
- Dogger Bank D – England – 1320 MW
- Berwick Bank – Scotland – 4100 MW
- Seagreen Phase 1A – Scotland – 500 MW
- Outer Dowsing – England – 1500 MW
- Morecambe – England – 480 MW
- Mona – England – 1500 MW
- Morgan – England – 1500 MW
- Morven – England – 2907 MW
- Ossian – Scotland – 3610 MW
- Bellrock – Scotland – 1200 MW
- CampionWind – Scotland – 2000 MW
- Muir Mhòr – Scotland – 798 MW
- Bowdun – Scotland – 1008 MW
- Ayre – Scotland – 1008 MW
- Broadshore – Scotland – 900 MW
- Caledonia – Scotland – 2000 MW
- Stromar – Scotland – 1000 MW
- MarramWind – Scotland – 3000 MW
- Buchan – Scotland – 960 MW
- West of Orkney – Scotland – 2000 MW
- Havbredey – Scotland – 1500 MW
- N3 Project – Scotland – 495 MW
- Spiorad na Mara – Scotland – 840 MW
- MachairWind – Scotland – 2000 MW
- Sheringham Shoal and Dudgeon Extensions – England – 719 MW
- Llŷr 1 – Wales – 100 MW
- Llŷr 2 – Wales – 100 MW
- Whitecross – England – 100 MW
- Total – 48262 MW
- Grand Total – 57337 MW
57337 MW would have enough electricity left over to replace Germany’s gas.
Wind Farms On The East Coast Of Scotland
This map shows the proposed wind farms off the East coast of Scotland.
There are five wind farms in the map.
- The green area is the cable corridor for Seagreen 1a
- Inch Cape is the odd-shaped wind farm to the North and West of the green area
- Seagreen at the top of the map, to the North of Inch Cape.
- Marr Bank with the pink NE-SW hatching
- Berwick Bank with the green NW-SE hatching
- Neart Na Gaoithe is edged in blue to the South of the green area.
Berwick Bank and Marr Bank are both owned by SSE and appear to have been combined.
These are some more details on each of the now four wind farms.
Seagreen
These are details of the Seagreen wind farm.
- Seagreen will be Scotland’s largest and the world’s deepest offshore wind farm when complete.
- The first phase will have 114 turbines and a capacity of 1075 MW.
- It will connect to the grid at a new substation at Tealing near Dundee.
- The cables will run to the North of the Inch Cape wind farm.
- It will be completed in 2023.
- The second phase (1a), will have 36 turbines.
- It may have larger turbines.
- The cables will run in the green area to Cockenzie in East Lothian.
This press release from SSE is entitled Another Milestone For Scotland’s Largest Offshore Wind Farm As 4,800 Tonnes Offshore Platform Completed.
This is the first paragraph.
The topside forms the backbone of the offshore wind farm. At 40 metres long, 45 metres wide and 15 metres high, the heavyweight superstructure’s role is to collect and manage 1,075MW of power generated by the 114 Vestas wind turbines before transferring it ashore via around 60km of offshore subsea cabling.
This platform is used to connect the 114 turbines to the shore.
Inch Cape
This paragraph from the home page of the Inch Cape web site, describes the wind farm.
The Inch Cape Offshore Wind Farm, currently in late stage development, will see up to 72 turbines located 15 km off the Angus Coast and connect to the National Grid at Cockenzie, East Lothian. Once complete, it will be one of Scotland’s largest single sources of renewable energy and power up to 1 million homes with clean electricity.
The home page says it will generate up to 1 GW of electricity.
Neart Na Gaoithe
This sentence for the Wikipedia entry for the Neart Na Gaoithe web site describes the wind farm.
It is being developed by Mainstream Renewable Power at a cost of £1.4bn. Offshore work began in 2020, with completion planned for 2023.
The Wikipedia entry says it will generate up to 450 MW of electricity.
Berwick Bank
These two paragraphs from the project page of the Berwick Bank web site describes the wind farm.
Located in the North Sea, in the outer Firth of Forth, Berwick Bank Offshore Wind Farm has the potential to deliver up to 4.1 GW of installed capacity, making it one of the largest offshore opportunities in the world.
Berwick Bank Wind Farm is in the development stage and previously the project was comprised of two separate proposals, Berwick Bank Wind Farm and Marr Bank Wind Farm. Following initial rounds of consultation, it has been decided to combine our proposals into one single opportunity – Berwick Bank Wind Farm.
At 4.1 GW, Berwick Bank is a big wind farm.
The capacity of the four farms can be summarised as follows.
- Seagreen – 1075 MW
- Neart Na Gaoithe – 450 MW
- Inch Cape – 1000 MW
- Berwick Bank – 4100 MW
This gives a total of 6625 MW.
The Anonymous Widower 