The world's first offshore wind farm, comprising just two turbines and located on a rocky promontory about 1.5 km offshore, was built in 2002 near the small, former coal-mining village of Newbiggin, Northumberland, by E.ON. Soon after that, E.ON built the Scroby Sands wind farm on a sandbank off Lowestoft. Since then, domestically, we have seen several rounds of development, with some projects developing extensions, and the latest – Round 4 (in England and Wales) and Scotwind (Scotland) – promise to contribute significantly to an installed offshore wind capacity of 30+ GW, a political target unrivalled by other countries. As offshore windpower has rolled out both in the UK and internationally the levelised* cost of energy for these developments has come down and for many new developments the sector is nearing subsidy-free status.
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