Photo by Marian Florinel Condruz
Energy Secretary Ed Miliband has granted development consent to three major offshore wind farms on the same day as the King’s Speech, adding up to 4GW of new North Sea generating capacity, equivalent to a quarter of the UK’s entire current offshore wind fleet.
The decisions, announced on 13 May, cover Dogger Bank South East and Dogger Bank South West, each 1.5GW, developed by RWE and Masdar off the north-east coast of England, and North Falls, a 1GW project off the Suffolk coast developed by RWE and SSE Renewables. Miliband had reset the original deadlines in late April to avoid the run-up to local elections across England.
Scale and timeline
The 200-turbine Dogger Bank South array will connect to National Grid’s proposed Creyke Beck substation near Cottingham and is expected to be fully commissioned by 2032. It won a £91.20/MWh Contract for Difference in Allocation Round 7. The consenting process had been paused in late 2024 to await additional paperwork, with issues raised before the Planning Inspectorate including calls from Natural England and the Marine Management Organisation for a seasonal piling ban during construction. SSE, Equinor and Vårgrønn also raised concerns over potential wake effects at the neighbouring 3.6GW Dogger Bank complex.
North Falls, located 40km off East Anglia and an extension of SSE-RWE’s operational 504MW Greater Gabbard wind farm, will make landfall near Kirkby Brook in Essex and connect to a proposed East Anglia Connection Node substation by October 2030. The scheme has been closely coordinated with RWE’s 1.1GW Five Estuaries wind farm, permitted in December, sharing a landfall location and onshore cable corridor. North Falls will be eligible to enter this year’s Allocation Round 8.
Industry response
RenewableUK’s CEO Tara Singh said: “These projects will provide up to 4 gigawatts of new offshore wind capacity, equivalent to a quarter of the UK’s entire current offshore wind fleet. That’s enough to power over four million homes a year.”
Singh added that the projects “will draw in billions of pounds of private investment in vital new clean energy infrastructure and create hundreds of new jobs during their development, construction and operation”, noting that “every gigawatt of offshore wind we build pushes more expensive gas off our energy system.”
The consents land on the same day the government confirmed its Energy Independence Bill, which pledges to fast-track grid infrastructure, including sea cables, and accelerate the rollout of offshore wind. RenewableUK has set out a series of measures it wants to see included in the bill to reduce costs and strengthen energy security further.