The largest wind turbines in the world are now operating off the coast of the UK.
Dong Energy, the Danish company that installed them, confirmed that the Burbo Bank offshore wind farm extension in Liverpool Bay was now fully operational.
Made up of 32 8MW wind turbines, the extension will be able to power over 230,000 homes.
Towering at an incredible 640 feet and sporting blades some 262 feet in length these wind turbines are larger than some skyscrapers and have the ability to power a house for 29 hours through just a single rotation.
To put that into perspective, just one of these turbines produces more electricity than the whole of the world’s first offshore wind farm, installed by Dong energy more than 25 years ago.
While the UK has, on the whole been supportive of using renewable energy sources like wind, the government has pressed the companies involved for significant savings.
Dong found the easiest way to do this was deploy smaller numbers of much larger wind turbines.
The Burbo Bank offshore wind farm contains 32 of these megastructures, as opposed to to having more, smaller turbines.
The UK has a set target of using wind power to provide 10 per cent of the entire country’s energy needs by 2020.