Innogy Secures Sofia Capacity Boost

Innogy has received approval to increase the maximum installed capacity of its Sofia offshore wind farm by 200MW, from 1.2GW to 1.4GW.

UK’s Marine Management Organisation (MMO) has approved amendments to the deemed marine licenses, which correspond to changes to the development consent order decided by the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) Greg Clark in late March.

The approvals also grant permission to use larger turbines with a maximum rotor diameter of 288m, up from the 215m that was in the original consent.

According to innogy, the capacity increase means the amount of renewable electricity generated by Sofia once operational could be boosted by around 15%.

The company added that it requested the increase in applications submitted to the UK Planning Inspectorate and MMO in June last year.

“We applied to change the project’s development consent order and marine licences to ensure that Sofia would be able to employ the latest generation of larger, more efficient and technologically advanced wind turbines,” said Sofia Project Director David Few.

“The approval decisions are clearly excellent news and now mean that Sofia will be able to make an even bigger contribution towards achieving the UK’s carbon emission reduction targets.”

Sofia, the largest project in innogy’s development portfolio, will comprise up to 200 turbines located 165km offshore UK’s North East coast on Dogger Bank in the North Sea.

The project secured the development consent order in August 2015 and is due to take part in the Government’s next Contracts for Difference (CfD) allocation round, scheduled for May.

Electricity generated by the project will feed into the national grid at an existing substation located in Lackenby, Teesside.