The first turbine at Hornsea One, an offshore wind farm situated 120 kilometers off the coast of Yorkshire, has started to generate power.
In an announcement Friday, Danish renewable energy firm Orsted said that, when fully operational, the Hornsea One offshore wind farm would be almost double the size of Walney Extension, which is currently the world's biggest.
The Hornsea One site will be made up of 174, 7-megawatt turbines from Siemens Gamesa. It is a joint venture between Orsted and Global Infrastructure Partners.
Turbine installation for Hornsea One is set to continue until "late summer 2019", according to Orsted. The wind farm will have a capacity of 1.2 gigawatts and will be able to power more than one million homes in the U.K.
"Hornsea One is the first of a new generation of offshore power plants that now rival the capacity of traditional fossil fuel power stations," Matthew Wright, Orsted's U.K. Managing Director, said in a statement.
"The ability to generate clean electricity offshore at this scale is a globally significant milestone, at a time when urgent action needs to be taken to tackle climate change."
In other wind energy news Friday, Norway's Equinor announced that it had signed a memorandum of understanding with Korea National Oil Corporation to jointly explore opportunities to "develop commercial floating offshore wind in South Korea."
Equinor operates Hywind Scotland, the world's "first full-scale commercial floating offshore wind farm." Located off the coast of Scotland, the facility has a capacity of 30-megawatts and can produce enough power for around 20,000 homes.
