The UK wind energy industry received a boost with the announcement of the world’s biggest offshore wind farm, to be built off the north-east coast. The announcement has been made by Danish firm, Dong Energy. The company, which has already put £6bn into wind power in the UK, said this was its largest investment in offshore wind to date. An estimated 2,000 jobs will be created for the construction of the project, with a further 300 jobs likely to be created for its operation.

The 1.2GW Hornsea project will be made up of 7MW wind turbines, the largest generally available, each more than 190m high. Dong is planning to have them built at a factory in Hull owned by Siemens, the German industrial giant, but it is uncertain whether all of them will come from there.

Currently the largest wind farm in operation is the 630 MW London Array, although it’s set to be overtaken by other installations before the new Dong Energy initiative, dubbed Hornsea Project One, is completed.