By Kari Williamson

E.ON has applied for permission to put a 100 m met mast on the proposed Rampion site and is on the verge of carrying out detailed environmental studies. The met mast will collect wind speed data and measure wave heights and sea currents.

The data will help E.ON design the layout of the offshore wind farm at the site around 13 km off the Sussex coast.

Dave Rogers, Regional Director for Renewables at E.ON, says: "Round 3 challenges us to build even bigger and better offshore wind farms, in much more challenging environments. Rampion’s relative proximity to shore means that we can work reasonably quickly as we look to move to more industrial-scale developments, and we’re already seeing good progress on the scheme.”

Humber Gateway permission

E.ON has also been granted planning approval to build the 230 MW Humber Gateway offshore wind farm approximately 8 km off the Holderness Coast in the East Riding of Yorkshire.

“It’s hard to believe that, when we built the two turbines off the coast of Blyth a decade ago that we’d be in a position where we’d be developing wind farms hundreds of times more powerful so much further offshore,” Rogers adds.

“We really have moved away from what was essentially a cottage industry towards developments that compare with conventional power stations in terms of their output.”

E.ON is also a partner in the 1 GW London Array offshore wind farm together with DONG Energy and Masdar. The first phase of the project expected to be complete by the end of 2012.