Warwick Energy faces oppositions in Norfolk wind farm project

Warwick Energy, planning to construct a £1.3 billion worth of wind turbines which could produce over one per cent of the country’s required energy, is to submit a planning permission for Norfolk’s offshore wind farm.

The energy company has various experiences in the renewable energy sector. It has been involved in Thanet’s offshore wind farm, which will be the largest wind farm in the world when it is constructed next year.

Warwick Energy is planning to build first the onshore element of its 168 proposed wind turbines, which can generate at least 540MW of renewable energy by 2013. However, the energy firm has encountered oppositions to its recent Norfolk proposal from the locals of Little Dunham, where Warwick Energy anticipates to build the sub-station.

Village residents are concerned about the site’s appearance and its effects on traffic, although Warwick Energy emphasized that the sub-station will occupy only 22 acres of the earlier proposed 42-acre site and it will be sensitively designed.

Dudgeon Offshore Wind, the energy firm’s subsidiary, is meanwhile waiting for the approval of the site’s offshore part. Warwick Energy is also seeking authorization to lay 45kms of cable, which will be the UK’s longest buried high voltage cable line, to feed the energy produced from the offshore wind turbines into the grid.

Despite the UK government’s emission targets, many energy firms are finding it difficult to convince people living near proposed wind farm sites. Earlier this year, the British Wind Energy Association informed that the local councils’ approvals of wind farm applications have dropped to a new low of just 25 per cent, down from 63 per cent in 2007.