London Array: The World's Largest Wind Farm Switches Online in the UK

England’s London Array just placed its last wind turbine and switched online as the world’s largest wind farm. Located in the Thames Estuary, the farm consists of 175 turbines that will power the area from Essex to Margate. Owned by Dong Energy, Masdar and EON, the 141 turbine (630 MW) phase one of the London Array is now fully functional.

Read more: London Array: The World's Largest Wind Farm Switches Online in the UK | Inhabitat - Sustainable Design Innovation, Eco Architecture, Green Building 

London proper is already known for being home to the world’s largest solar bridge, at Blackfriars, and now Kent joins the renewable energy elite with London Array, which is only around 50 miles from the capital. Under construction since March of 2011, the London Array’s first Siemens 3.6MW turbine kicked into power just six months ago. Since then, the remainder of the first phase has quickly come into fruition, and since last Thursday has been pumping wind power into the grid.

Aside from becoming the world’s largest wind farm, the developers behind the London Array are also using the project as a case study, in order to lower costs for large scale wind farms in the future. The ultimate goal for DONG Energy is to create offshore wind farm projects that yield usable wind power at around $152 per megawatt hour by 2020.

The next phase will be to get the remaining 34 turbines online, as well as to bury remaining cables. Phase one itself is anticipated to provide power for half a million homes a year, which will save 925,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions per year.

Read more: London Array: The World's Largest Wind Farm Switches Online in the UK | Inhabitat - Sustainable Design Innovation, Eco Architecture, Green Building