The government has set a national target for 20 per cent of our electricity to come from renewable energy sources by 2020. Find out how the North West is contributing towards meeting this target.
Renewable energy is the way forward, and the North West - with its shallow sea bed - has been identified as one of the three key areas for offshore wind development in the UK.
Renewables provided just under three per cent of the UK's elecricity generation in 2000, generating approximately 10,500 GWh. This is a long way short of the new national target that 20 per cent of electricity is to be supplied from renewables by 2020.
At a glance
- The UK has 30-40 per cent of the total wind resource of Europe. In theory, this is enough to meet the electricity needs of the country several times over.
- The North West has more sites generating electricity from renewable resources than any other English region. Most of the region's renewable energy currently comes from landfill gas.
- In 2001, 15 wind farms across the region produced 37 per cent of England's electricity generated from wind power. Most of these are in Cumbria.
- The first offshore wind energy project was completed in Blyth in 2000 but it was only in 2003 that the first large scale offshore wind farm was constructed at North Hoyle in North West England.
- A number of offshore wind farms have since been proposed for the region. The farm at Barrow in Cumbria started generating power in July 2006 and is producing 50,323 annual homes equivalent. The Burbo Bank farm in Merseyside is currently under construction and will produce the same annual homes equivalent when it comes on line. Approval has been given for a farm at Ormonde off Walney Island, and submissions have been made for further wind farms at Walney, West of Duddon Sands, Cirrus Array (Shell Flats) and Gwynt y Mor in Liverpool Bay.
Find out more
- Envirolink Northwest
Envirolink Northwest aims to raise the profile of the renewable energy sector and assist the region's businesses to find, develop and supply renewable energy technologies and services.
