Work has begun on the world’s largest offshore wind farm, 120km off the coast of East Yorkshire.

The first of Hornsea Project One’s 174 monopile support structures (pictured) has been installed; when complete, the wind farm will have a capacity of 1.2GW, making it the world’s first offshore farm to have a capacity over 1GW.

The project is being developed by Denmark’s Ørsted (www.orsted.co.uk), and it will produce enough power for over one million homes. In April 2014, the UK Government agreed to pay Ørsted a fixed price per KWh of electricity for Hornsea’s first 15 years of operation, after which the company will get the market price.

Project director Duncan Clark said: “Onshore, we are continuing to construct the East Coast Hub, which will serve as an operations and maintenance base for our existing wind farms in the area plus both Hornsea Project One and Project Two, on which we took a final investment decision last year.

"These wind farms will not only greatly contribute to the UK’s goal of decarbonising our energy system, they are also bringing jobs and investment to Grimsby and the North East.”

Hornsea Project One is expected to be operational in 2020; when completed, Hornsea Projects One and Two will
generate enough electricity to power over 2.3 million UK homes.