A localised public consultation opens on Tuesday 18th October at Rampion2.com [18 October to 29 November] on adjustments to the proposed onshore cable route for Rampion 2 Offshore Wind Farm. The wind farm could power over one million homes1 in the UK and reduce carbon emissions by around 1.8 million tonnes2 per year.
Following two extensive consultation periods last year, the Rampion 2 team has been working to address the feedback received from local communities, organisations and landowners in addition to carrying out ongoing engineering and environmental assessments.
“We want to thank the local communities in Sussex for all the feedback that they have taken time to provide to us. As a result, we are considering a number of potential alternatives and modifications to our cable route, new trenchless crossings and new alternative construction or operation accesses, to help further improve the project and reduce impacts,” said Chris Tomlinson, Development & Stakeholder Manager, Rampion 2, RWE.
Consultation on Rampion 2 Offshore Wind Farm started in 2020. A formal nine-week public consultation launched in July 2021 and attracted 12,500 visits to the project website, promoted by a huge publicity campaign. The chosen site for the onshore substation, Oakendene, near Cowfold in Horsham District, was announced in July this year.
This further round of consultation is focussed on key organisations and communities who live, work or visit the local areas in the vicinity of the potential cable route changes. This consultation is not revisiting the whole project, such as the offshore parts or the onshore electricity substation.
Four public consultation events will be held at Arundel, Ashurst, Climping and Washington and full details and maps of the cable routes can be seen at the project consultation website: Rampion2.com
Chris Tomlinson continued, “The electricity cable installation from the wind farm to the new electricity substation would be a temporary impact during construction, as all cables would be buried underground. The Rampion 2 team are committed to reinstate the land back to its former condition as soon as possible after our works. This work would be done on short sections of the route at a time, over a period of eighteen to twenty weeks of an overall construction period of 2 – 2.5 years. Where we can improve the route and implement measures to further reduce those temporary impacts, we will strive to do so.”
“We can also announce today that in response to feedback on visual effects and shipping from key stakeholders, including Natural England, we have reduced the extent of our offshore wind turbine array proposals by nearly half. In addition, we have decreased the maximum number of turbines down from 116 to 90, whilst maintaining the potential capacity to generate up to 1200MW.”
“We are aiming to submit our final proposals to the Planning Inspectorate next year. Should the project achieve consent, construction could start around 2026, with the wind farm fully operational before the end of the decade, helping meet the Government targets to quadruple offshore wind capacity by 2030,” said Chris Tomlinson.
Maps and details on the changes and the reasons for them can be found at rampion2.com/consultation.
RWE is one of the globally leading renewables companies and is highly experienced in the development of large-scale offshore wind. It is seeking to develop Rampion 2 on behalf of a joint venture company including a Macquarie-led consortium and Enbridge Inc., a leading North American energy infrastructure company.
LOCAL DROP-IN EVENTS:
Drop-in events are being held as follows for local communities along the proposed cable route to see the plans and meet the Rampion 2 Team:
Arundel Town Hall, Atherley Chamber, Maltravers St, Arundel BN18 9AP
Tuesday 1st November 2022, 1-8pm
Arun Yacht Club, Rope Walk Riverside West, Rope Walk, Littlehampton BN17 5DL
Wednesday 2nd November 2022, 1-8pm
Ashurst Village Hall, The Street, Ashurst, Steyning BN44 3AP
Friday 11st November 2022, 1-8pm
Washington Village Memorial Hall, School Lane, Washington RH20 4AP
Saturday 12th November 2022, 1-8pm
Media contact: Paula Seager, Natural PR, Email: paula@naturalpr.biz or Tel: 01273 857242
UK wind energy context:
The cost of offshore wind has halved in just two to three years and is now cheaper than nuclear and coal, while the industry is creating tens of thousands of jobs nationwide. The UK leads the world in offshore wind and the Government is committed to quadrupling offshore wind capacity to 40 gigawatts (GW) by 2030. Rampion 2 can make a major contribution to this target.
RAMPION 2 Background:
Rampion 2 is being developed by RWE, one of the UK’s most established and experienced renewable energy producers, RWE is one of the globally leading companies in offshore wind and a world leader in renewable energy production. It is developing the project on behalf of a joint venture company including a Macquarie-led consortium (comprising Macquarie European Infrastructure Fund 5, the Green Investment Group and the Universities Superannuation Scheme) and a subsidiary of Enbridge Inc. (a leading North American energy infrastructure company). Together with owners of the existing Rampion offshore Wind Farm they have signed an Agreement for Lease with The Crown Estate (managers of the seabed) securing an option to develop on the site.
References:
1 based on an average annual domestic household electricity consumption of 3,618 kWh (BEIS, Dec 2019)
2 the calculation made using a static figure of 446g/kWh representing the energy mix in the UK (BEIS, July 2020)