Opening of Humber Gateway Offshore Wind Farm

I had the great pleasure earlier today in officially opening E.ON’s new Humber Gateway Offshore Wind Farm, located 8km off the Holderness coast.

The 73-turbine wind farm went into full operation in May and will provide enough electricity for around 170,000 homes – equivalent to around one and a half times the size of Hull. It will give the local economy a major and sustained boost and will generate enough clean electricity to power more than 170,000 homes.

I also officially christened the vessels serving the site. The Spirit of Hoton, the Spirit of Sunthorp and the Spirit of Turmarr, built by UK based Alicat Workboats, have been named after villages lost through coastal erosion along the Holderness coast. The vessels will be used to transport engineers, technicians and their equipment offshore to the turbines to carry out maintenance.

As I regularly make clear, one of my top priorities as Energy Minister is dealing with the energy trilemma – how we decarbonise our energy sector, keep bills down and keep the lights on. That is why we have taken steps to end new subsidies for onshore wind, as the cost comes down, so that taxpayers are not permanently subsidising an industry that has the ability to stand on its own two feet.

However, we are continuing to support and promote the opportunities presented through offshore wind.

We have a world-leading offshore wind industry, with the UK making up about half of all deployed offshore wind in the world and over 5GW of operational capacity which is on track to double by the end of the decade. We also have a growing installation, development and blade-manufacturing industry that employs about 14,000 people, but there is clearly potential for many excellent new careers across the sector.