Vattenfall starts work on 54.4-MW wind farm in UK

Swedish utility Vattenfall AB said on Thursday that preparatory works on its 54.4-MW Ray wind farm near Kirkwhelpington, northern England, will begin this month.

The GBP-90-million (USD 139.6m/EUR 127.2m) wind park will start generating power in early 2017. Yet, the project will be accredited in the Renewables Obligation (RO) support scheme, the company said. The UK government announced last month that the RO will be closed to new onshore wind from April 2016, a year earlier than planned. However, grace periods have been proposed for projects meeting certain criteria.

Site mobilisation and civil engineering works will start by the end of July. Offsite grid connection works are planned for the autumn and the 16 turbines for the scheme are scheduled to be delivered in the summer of 2016. Once fully operational, the facility is expected to produce enough power to meet the annual needs of over 30,000 UK households.

Vattenfall will start a five-month consultation in August to engage local residents in the structuring of a community fund, in which the company will contribute GBP 250,000 per year over a period of 20 years, starting from 2017.

(GBP 1.0 = USD 1.551/EUR 1.413)

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