Masdar to invest more than £525 million in Dudgeon offshore wind farm
Abu Dhabi-owned green energy giant Masdar has confirmed that it will invest £525 million for a 35% stake in the planned Dudgeon offshore wind farm, alongside Norweigan partners Statoil and Stakraft.
Abu Dhabi-owned green energy giant Masdar has confirmed that it will invest £525 million for a 35% stake in the planned Dudgeon offshore wind farm, alongside Norweigan partners Statoil and Stakraft.
Based off the coast of north Norfolk, the wind farm is expected to support 450 jobs and bring hundreds of millions of pounds of investment into the UK’s economy. It could generate enough electricity to power approximately 410,000 homes.
The wind farm could also create opportunities for manufacturers across the UK. Earlier this year, Siemens announced that they were investing £310 million to build two offshore wind manufacturing plants in Hull. The developers hope that some of the turbines at Dudgeon will come from these factories.
Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Davey said:
“Masdar’s investment is a strong endorsement of the UK as the best place in the world to invest in offshore wind - and it shows the Government’s plan for green growth is working.
“Since 2010 we have seen, on average, £7 billion a year invested in renewables and we expect to see up to £50 billion more between now and 2020.”
The project reached an important milestone in early July when the developers announced that they had made a final investment decision to go ahead, investing £1.5 billion into UK offshore wind.
Masdar was also one of the investors in the world’s largest offshore wind farm, the London Array, three years before it was built. Masdar remains a pioneering investor, showing their confidence in the UK’s offshore wind sector.
Dudgeon is one of the five offshore wind projects that signed an early Contract for Difference under the new system for low-carbon electricity generation. As well as being the first contracts awarded under the system, they mark a new stage in the growth of the sector, bringing green jobs and growth across the UK and supporting cleaner and more secure energy.
Notes for Editors:
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Dudgeon is a fully consented, proposed offshore wind project, that is located 32 km [20 miles] off the coast of the seaside town of Cromer in North Norfolk. It has a maximum capacity of 402MW and it is expected to start generating electricity in 2017.
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The two Norwegian energy companies, Statoil and Statkraft, acquired the Dudgeon Offshore Wind Farm project in October 2012 through the acquisition of all the shares in Dudgeon Offshore Wind Limited, a subsidiary of the UK energy company Warwick Energy Limited.