Centrica reviews wind energy plans
Centrica, the owner of utility giant British Gas, is being forced to review its green energy plans as the economic crisis deepens. It has planned to invest £4bn building offshore windfarms but is looking at plans as the building costs have soared.
The company, which is the leader in offshore windpower, has 54 turbines and a total capacity of 180 megawatts, but it is now reviewing plans to build a total of 1,600MW of offshore wind capacity.
The company, which hopes to start full operation of its new Lynn & Inner Dowsing windfarms on eastern England by the end of the year, has yet to approve three more farms that it plans to build in the North sea.
Last month, Centrica said it expects to invest £1.5bn over the next few years in renewable energy generation schemes. Earlier this year, British Gas launched a range of microgeneration products, such as a Fuel Cell Boiler, for consumers to generate electricity in their own homes (MW March 27).
Offshore wind costs around £3bn per gigawatt of capacity to build. Government targets state that 15% of Britain’s energy should be produced by renewable resources by 2020.
