The United Kingdom is the best location for wind power in Europe and one of the best in the world. The combination of long coastline, shallow water and strong winds make offshore wind unusually effective.
The London Array is a 175-turbine 630 MW Round 2 offshore wind farm located 20 kilometres (12 mi) off the Kent coast in the outer Thames Estuary in the United Kingdom. It was the largest offshore wind farm in the world until Walney Extension reached full production in September 2018.
Greater Gabbard is a 504 MW wind farm, built on sandbanks 23 kilometres (14 mi) off the coast of Suffolk in England at a cost of £1.5 billion. It was completed on 7 September 2012 with all of the Siemens SWT3.6–107 turbines connected. Developed as a joint venture between Airtricity and Fluor, it is now jointly owned by SSE Renewables and RWE.
Wind power is the fastest-growing renewable energy technology in Scotland, with 11,482 megawatts (MW) of installed wind power capacity by Q1 2023. This included 9,316 MW from onshore wind in Scotland and 2,166 MW of offshore wind generators.
Making up over 62% of the state's generated electricity in 2022, wind power is the largest source of electricity generation in Iowa. In 2020, over 34 billion kWh of electrical energy was generated by wind power. As of 2022, Iowa has over 12,200 megawatts (MW) of installed capacity with over 6,000 wind turbines, ranking second and third in the nation below Texas respectively.
Whitelee Wind Farm is a windfarm on the Eaglesham moor in Scotland. The main visitor centre is located in East Renfrewshire, but the majority of turbines are located in East Ayrshire and South Lanarkshire. It is the largest on-shore wind farm in the United Kingdom with 215 Siemens and Alstom wind turbines and a total capacity of 539 megawatts (MW), with the average of 2.5 MW per turbine. Whitelee was developed and is operated by ScottishPower Renewables, which is part of the Spanish company Iberdrola.
Biglow Canyon Wind Farm is an electricity generating wind farm facility in Sherman County, Oregon, United States. It is owned by Portland, Oregon-based Portland General Electric and began operations in 2007. With the completion of phase 3 of the project it has a generating capacity of 450 megawatts. It is located roughly five miles (8 km) northeast of Wasco, Oregon, and about ten miles (16 km) southeast of Rufus, Oregon. Biglow Canyon Wind Farm covers 25,000 acres (10,000 ha) in the Columbia River Gorge.
The Cedar Creek Wind Farm is a 551.3 megawatt (MW) wind farm located about 8 miles east of the town of Grover in north-central Weld County, Colorado. It consists of 397 wind turbines and was constructed in two phases, Cedar Creek I and Cedar Creek II, becoming fully operational in 2010. The electricity is sold to the Public Service Company of Colorado.
The Burbo Bank Offshore Wind Farm is a 348 MW offshore wind farm located on the Burbo Flats in Liverpool Bay on the west coast of the UK in the Irish Sea. It consists of an original 90 MW wind farm commissioned in 2007 and a 258 MW extension completed in 2017.
Neart Na Gaoithe is an offshore wind farm under construction in the outer Firth of Forth, 30 kilometres (19 mi) north of Torness. It has a potential capacity of 450 MW. It is being developed by EDF Renewables and ESB. Offshore work began in 2020, with completion originally planned for 2023 but delayed due to supply chain challenges until 2024.
The Lincs Wind Farm is a 270 MW offshore wind farm 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) off Skegness on the east coast of England. The total cost of the project is estimated at £1 billion including electrical transmission links. The farm was completed in 2013. It is adjacent to the smaller Lynn and Inner Dowsing Wind Farm.
The Beatrice Offshore Wind Farm now known as Beatrice Offshore Windfarm Ltd (BOWL) project, is an offshore wind farm close to the Beatrice oil field in the Moray Firth, part of the North Sea 13 km off the north east coast of Scotland.
West of Duddon Sands Wind Farm (WoDS), occasionally also known as West Duddon Wind Farm is an offshore wind farm located 14 kilometres (8.7 mi) south west of Walney Island off the coast of Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria, in the Irish Sea, England. It was developed by Scottish Power and Ørsted A/S.
Dudgeon Offshore Wind Farm is an offshore wind farm 32 km north of Cromer off the coast of Norfolk, in the North Sea, England. It is owned by Dudgeon Offshore Wind Limited (DOW), a subsidiary of Equinor, Masdar and Statkraft. The site is a relatively flat area of seabed between the Cromer Knoll and Inner Cromer Knoll sandbanks and is one of the furthest offshore sites around the UK.
Walney Wind Farms are a group of offshore wind farms 9 miles (14 km) west of Walney Island off the coast of Cumbria, England, in the Irish Sea. The group, operated by Ørsted, consists of Walney Phase 1, Phase 2 and the Walney Extension. The extension has a capacity of 659 MW and it was the world's second largest offshore wind farm in 2018.
The great majority of wind turbines around the world belong to individuals or corporations who use them to generate electric power or to perform mechanical work. As such, wind turbines are primarily designed to be working devices. However, the large size and height above surroundings of modern industrial wind turbines, combined with their moving rotors, often makes them among the most conspicuous objects in their areas. A few localities have exploited the attention-getting nature of wind turbines by placing them on public display, either with visitor centers on their bases, or with viewing areas farther away. The wind turbines themselves are generally of conventional horizontal-axis, three-bladed design, and generate power to feed electrical grids, but they also serve the unconventional roles of technology demonstration, public relations, and education.
The East Anglia Array is a proposed series of offshore wind farms located around 30 miles off the east coast of East Anglia, in the North Sea, England. It has begun with the currently operational East Anglia ONE, that has been developed in partnership by ScottishPower Renewables and Vattenfall. Up to six individual projects could be set up in the area with a maximum capacity of up to 7.2 GW. The first project, East Anglia ONE at 714 MW, received planning consent in June 2014 and contracts in April 2016. Offshore construction began in 2018 and the project was commissioned in July 2020. It is expected to cost £2.5 billion.
The Waipipi Wind Farm is a wind powered electricity generation project in New Zealand owned and operated by Mercury NZ Ltd. This site is located between Patea and Waverley in South Taranaki. The wind farm consists of 31 wind turbines over 980 hectares, generating up to 133 MW at a cost of approximately $277 million. The 4.3 MW machines are the largest wind turbines installed in New Zealand.
The Bison Wind Energy Center is a 496.6 megawatt (MW) wind farm spanning southwest Oliver County and north-central Morton County in the U.S. state of North Dakota. It became the largest wind generating facility in the state upon completion of the fourth construction phase in early 2015. The facility allowed the investor-owned utility company, Minnesota Power, to obtain more than 25% of its electricity generation from renewable sources, exceeding Minnesota's 2025 renewable portfolio standard requirement.
