Status Under construction Type Offshore Site area 72 km² Construction cost 1.3 billion GBP | Commission date 2017 (expected) Distance from shore 13 km (8.1 mi) Owner E.ON | |
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Country England, United Kingdom Location English Channel, off the coast of Sussex | ||
Rampion wind farm exercise
Rampion is an offshore wind farm development by E.ON, under construction off the Sussex coast in the UK. The wind farm has a target capacity of 400 MW (originally 700 MW were planned). Construction is expected to be completed in 2018.
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Location
Located between 13 to 25 kilometres (8 to 16 mi) from the shore, the wind farm is situated off the coast of the towns of Worthing and Shoreham-by-Sea to the west, the city of Brighton and Hove in the centre and the towns of Newhaven and Seaford in the east. The wind farm lies in a zone that is an irregular elongated area, approximately 28 kilometres (17 mi) in an east to west direction and approximately 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) in the north to south direction. The wind farm itself is planned to occupy an area of 72 square kilometres (27.8 sq mi) (originally 167 square kilometres (64.5 sq mi), equivalent to two-fifths of the size of the Isle of Wight or nearly three times the size of Manhattan Island). The wind farm would originally have been viewable from the bay between Selsey Bill and Beachy Head, as well as from the Isle of Wight.
Name
Initially known as Zone 6 off the Sussex coast, it was later named the "Southern Array" (Hastings).
When the site of the wind farm was changed from near Hastings to off Brighton, E.ON held a competition with local schools to suggest a new name as a public relations exercise. The name ‘Rampion’ was voted the winning suggestion after the round-headed rampion (Phyteuma orbiculare), also known as the Pride of Sussex, the county flower of Sussex.
Planning
E.ON's final plans use 116 turbines of approximately 3.45 MW capacity, each 140 metres (459.3 ft) "high to tip". - this represents a 43% reduction in the size of the development after planning consent was received.
E.ON originally proposed using either 175 smaller turbines of 3–3.6 MW capacity, each 180 metres (590.6 ft) above low tide sea level, or 100 larger turbines of 7 MW capacity, each 210 metres (689.0 ft) above sea level. Development and construction costs were estimated at £2 billion. As the turbines are designed to last approximately 20–25 years, and since E.ON's lease of the site from the Crown Estate is for 50 years, the company would eventually need to replace the turbines.
The company took a lease on a site at the Port of Newhaven, where they constructed two new buildings to house the administration and engineering functions of the wind farm. The site's surrounding dockland will be used as storage for the land-side construction of the various turbine components, before they are shipped for final construction on site. Once the site is fully commissioned, the buildings will act as the combined servicing point for the wind farm.
The project was approved by the government in July 2014. In November 2014, E.ON announced that it had reduced the proposed capacity of the project by approximately 40%.
Construction
Onshore construction work began in June 2015 with construction of a new electricity substation adjacent to the existing National Grid Bolney 400/132kV Substation, near Twineham. The first wind turbine was lifted into place in March 2017 with work to backfill the cable duct trenches off Lancing Beach and the installation of the offshore substation due to be completed in Spring 2017 Construction of the wind farm is expected to be completed in 2018 at a cost of £1.3 billion.