Humber Gateway Wind Farm is a consented offshore wind farm

Wind farm

A wind farm is a group of wind turbines in the same location used to produce electric power. A large wind farm may consist of several hundred individual wind turbines, and cover an extended area of hundreds of square miles, but the land between the turbines may be used for agricultural or other...

 to be located 8 km east of Spurn Point off the coast of Humberside

Humberside

Humberside was a non-metropolitan and ceremonial county in Northern England from 1 April 1974 until 1 April 1996. It was composed of land from either side of the Humber Estuary, created from portions of the East and West ridings of Yorkshire and parts of Lindsey, Lincolnshire...

, in the North Sea

North Sea

In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. It is being developed by Humber Wind Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of E.ON UK

E.ON UK

E.ON UK is an energy company in the United Kingdom and a subsidiary of E.ON, the world's largest investor-owned power and gas company. As Powergen, it was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index but since 1 July 2002 has been owned by E.ON AG of...

 plc. The farm gets its name from the estuary of the Humber River

Humber

The Humber is a large tidal estuary on the east coast of Northern England. It is formed at Trent Falls, Faxfleet, by the confluence of the tidal River Ouse and the tidal River Trent. From here to the North Sea, it forms part of the boundary between the East Riding of Yorkshire on the north bank...

 which enters the North Sea at this point. The farm is 8 km from the shore, in water depths between 11 and 18m and will cover an area of approximately 35 sq km.

In 2004 Humber Wind Ltd, was awarded a 40 year lease from The Crown Estate to develop a wind farm at Humber Gateway as part of the second UK offshore wind farm tendering process known as "Round 2".

The project includes constructing the wind turbines and their foundations, building offshore substations, installing power cables both undersea and a 30 km onshore cable and a new electrical substation required for connection into the UK National Grid near Salt End

Salt End

Salt End or Saltend is a hamlet in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England, in an area known as Holderness. It is situated on the north bank of the Humber just outside the Hull eastern boundary on the A1033 road....

, east of Hull

Kingston upon Hull

Kingston upon Hull , usually referred to as Hull, is a city and unitary authority area in the ceremonial county of the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It stands on the River Hull at its junction with the Humber estuary, 25 miles inland from the North Sea. Hull has a resident population of...

. This work is estimated to take about 2 years.

The wind farm planning application was filed in April 2008 and consent was granted in February 2011, the first UK offshore scheme to be given consent since December 2008. The original application was for between 42 and 83 turbines

Wind turbine

A wind turbine is a device that converts kinetic energy from the wind into mechanical energy. If the mechanical energy is used to produce electricity, the device may be called a wind generator or wind charger. If the mechanical energy is used to drive machinery, such as for grinding grain or...

 with a nameplate capacity of 300 MW. However planning consent was granted for 77 turbines. This will provide up to 230 MW of power.

Planning

A number of consents and licences have been obtained for the construction and operation of Humber Gateway:-

• Consent for the offshore elements of the project (comprising the turbines, their foundations, the offshore substation, the inter array cables and the export cable to shore) obtained from the Department of Energy and Climate Change (formerly the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform).
• Consent for the proposed underground cable route, associated works and a separate consent for a new substation obtained from East Riding of Yorkshire Council (the local planning authority) under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 (Section 57).
• Consent under Section 36 of the Electricity Act (1989) to construct and operate the offshore wind farm, including all the ancillary infrastructure.
• Licence under the Section 5 of the Food and Environment Protection Act (1985) to deposit material on the sea bed such as turbine foundations and buried cables.
• Consent under Section 34 of the Coast Protection Act (1949) in order to make provision for the safety of navigation in relation to buried cables.

In addition these applications have been accompanied by three Environmental Statements to meet EU and UK law.