The Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult and Advance Northumberland are working in partnership to develop a new facility for testing offshore wind turbines. The Energy Central Offshore Wind Demonstrator project is being proposed in addition to Energy Central’s £30m Energy Park that is already under development.
The site will be designed to host one large prototype turbine for testing at a time. The turbines that will be tested at the proposed facility would be up to 300 metres in height. The Demonstrator site will be locally managed by ORE Catapult’s National Renewable Energy Centre in Blyth. A planning application is being prepared for October/November 2020 and a programme of public consultation will start in August. If planning permission is granted for the project, then the first turbine would be installed for testing in 2022.
