Rampion 1 Legacy

Factsheet Contents

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Fact-Sheet-07-V3-contents

Electricity generation, CO2 savings and job creation

Forecast to generate 1,366 Gigawatt (GWh) of power each year, Rampion:
  • Supplies electricity to the equivalent of almost 350,000 homes, that’s around half the homes in the whole of Sussex
  • Employs 65 full time, permanent staff at the Operations Base in Newhaven Port
  • Saves around 600,000 tonnes of CO2 every year for the 25 year lifetime of the project
  • Supported 8 students on a graduate scheme and took on 8 apprentices by 2019, some of who are now fully qualified turbine technicians
  • In January 2021, Rampion opened recruitment for two additional new wind turbine technician apprentices
  • Acted as a catalyst for the regeneration of Newhaven Port with the development of the Operations Base.

How has Rampion being performing?

In January 2021, Rampion beat their power generation target for 2020 by 15%

  • Generating over 1,600 Gigawatt hours (GWh) during the year
  • Powering the equivalent of over 400,000 homes
  • Reducing carbon emissions by well over 600,000 tonnes

Take a trip to the Rampion Visitor Centre to discover how much electricity Rampion is generating today!

Cable route reinstatement

Before
During
After reinstatement

Marine life

Anecdotal evidence shows that offshore wind farms, and in fact any structure that is placed
in the marine environment, attracts vegetation growth and micro-marine life, which in turn can attract greater diversity and numbers of marine life. The benefit is difficult to quantify and current research is limited, given the fact that it is not possible to control which species, indigenous or non-indigenous, colonise the turbine foundations.

These photographs show the vegetation growth and marine wildlife, which had already colonised the turbine foundations by July 2019, around three years after they were installed. If you look closely, you can see the metal foundations and ‘J’ tubes (which carry the cables from the base of the foundation under the seabed) in some small areas yet to be colonised.

 

Rampion 2 would like to thank Seasearch for supplying these wonderful
underwater photographs.

Stakeholder trip to Rampion Offshore Wind Farm, 1st October 2018

Tourism

In Rampion’s early days, occasional concerns were raised that perhaps a wind farm might not suit tourist hotspots on the Sussex coast, with Brighton alone attracting over 12million visitors each year. There is no evidence that onshore or offshore wind farms deter tourism and only anecdotal evidence to suggest the contrary, that people enjoy visiting wind turbines and wind farms to marvel at the engineering and the clean, green power being generated by nature.

Since Rampion has become a reality on the horizon it is being recognised as a major landmark as the first and only wind farm off the UK’s south coast. Since becoming fully operational in 2018, local boats have been chartered to take visitors out to see the wind farm – Rampion has become a tourist attraction!

For those who are unable to make it offshore, you can take a virtual trip to Rampion and climb atop the turbine at our Rampion Visitor Centre in Brighton!

How has Rampion been received by the Sussex community?

In 2010, an independent survey was commissioned to gauge the feeling of the Sussex community to the prospect of a wind
farm off the Sussex coast.

  • 80% of respondents felt positive about the prospect of a wind farm off the Sussex coast.

In 2019, the survey was carried out again when the turbines had been up and running for 18 months and the rating had increased.

  • 85% of respondents support the Rampion Wind Farm with only 4% opposed to the scheme
  • 88% are positive or neutral about the appearance of Rampion
  • 80% agreed offshore wind farms will be vital in tackling climate change

Rampion 1 Fund

In November 2017, Rampion made a £100,000 charitable donation to local RNLI stations and announced a £3.1million Rampion Community Fund.

Managed by the Sussex Community Foundation, a locally based charity, the Rampion Fund supports community projects across Sussex, particularly those with links to the environment, renewable energy and climate change.

The Fund has already supported 114 different projects, worth a total of over £1.6 million in grants since 2018, benefiting almost one million people in the Sussex community.

There have been some impressive stories of the positive impact grants have made in the fight against climate change, renewable energy and other sustainable solutions.

The Rampion Fund has played a major role in the charity, ‘Care for Veterans’ sustainability plans, with a grant to help install solar power. This in turn will reduce their annual energy bills and protect valuable funds for the charity’s intended purpose.

Community Transport Sussex is there for those with mobility problems or difficulty accessing public transport. The charity benefited from fully accessible, electric minibuses, protecting the future of their fleet while saving carbon emissions, too.

The Rampion Fund is still available for community project bids. For further information about the project selection criteria and guidance on making a bid, visit www.sussexgiving.org.uk/rampion

Visitor Centre

Climate change, renewable energy and our planet’s future are brought into sharp focus at an exciting new attraction which opened on Brighton seafront in September 2020.
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