The commissioning of the world's largest offshore wind farm "London Array" in Great Britain was marked with an official inauguration ceremony, attended by numerous politicians, managing directors and board members of the participating project partners.  Technical service providers Siemens  erected all 175 offshore wind turbines and installed the grid connection. The owners of the wind farm include Dong Energy, RWE Renewables and Masdar. Together with Dong Energy, Siemens is also responsible for the maintenance of the wind farm. With a total capacity of 630 megawatts, the wind farm will supply around half a million households with renewable electricity. London Array thus marks a milestone in the development of offshore wind energy. The operator consortium has also submitted a bid for the expansion of London Array by a further 240 MW as part of another tender for offshore projects in the UK. 

Wind energy for 500,000 households prevents emissions of 900,000 tonnes of CO₂

The London Array offshore wind farm is located in the Thames estuary, some 20 kilometres off the coast of Kent and Essex. 175 wind turbines with a rotor diameter of 120 metres and a capacity of 3.6 MW each are installed here. Prior to installation, each turbine is given a tag that assigns it its place on the 90 square kilometre site. Technicians place the tower on it, install the nacelle at its tip and attach three gigantic rotor blades 87 meters above the water. Their ends whirl around the hub in a circle 120 metres in diameter. From the surface of the water to the top of the vertical rotor blades, each of the grey giants measures 147 metres. 

At full capacity, the plant is designed to generate renewable energy for half a million households. This corresponds to the equivalent of around 900,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. Two offshore transformer substations in the North Sea and a transformer substation on the mainland were set up specifically for this purpose. The electricity generated is first bundled in one of the transformer stations at sea and then transported to the coast via high-voltage submarine cables. According to Siemens, the standardisation of processes for manufacturing, transportation, logistics and installation was further improved during the implementation of the wind farm.