East Yorkshire Coast 'Hornsea Zone' Wind Farms Consultation

SMart Wind Ltd is a consortium established to deliver the Government's plans for wind generation off the East Yorkshire coast in what is being called the "Hornsea" Zone. Hornsea is one of nine zones to be developed in the seas around Great Britain which between them will aim to provide at least 25% of the UK’s electricity generating capacity.

The plan is to create wind farms in the Hornsea Zone that can produce 4-gigawatts of power by 2020. This could, according to SMart Wind, provide enough electricity to meet approximately 4% of all electricity demand in the UK and power approximately 3 million homes.

The first part of the project, what SMart Wind refers to as "Project One", is to consider the essential infrastructure including onshore cable routes required for the project. However, before this work goes ahead SMart Wind need to carry out a detailed consultation with those local communities that may be affected by the proposals.

The Project One consultation starts this month. A 'Statement of Community Consultation' has been produced and communities have been invited to attend consultation events on both sides of the River Humber.

This includes events in Aldbrough on the 24th March, Patrington on 30th March, Burton Pidsea 31st March, Keyingham 5th April, Withernsea 6th April and Hedon on the 15th April. Click the image below for full details or visit Community Consultation Events for more information.

SMart Wind Limited is a project-development consortium of Mainstream Renewable Power and Siemens Project Ventures GmbH, each partner company holds a 50% stake.  The first project is expected to be ready for construction by 2014 subject to consultation and other approvals.