Gunfleet Sands Offshore Wind Farm is a 172
MW wind farm about off the
Clacton-on-Sea
Clacton-on-Sea, often simply called Clacton, is a seaside town and seaside resort, resort in the county of Essex, on the east coast of England. It is located on the Tendring Peninsula and is the largest settlement in the Tendring District, wi ...
coast in the Northern
Thames Estuary
The Thames Estuary is where the River Thames meets the waters of the North Sea, in the south-east of Great Britain.
Limits
An estuary can be defined according to different criteria (e.g. tidal, geographical, navigational or in terms of salinit ...
.
The 108 MW Gunfleet Sands 1 wind farm gained planning consent in 2003/4; in 2006 DONG Energy (now
Ørsted) acquired the project and submitted an application for a second 64 MW windfarm Gunfleet Sands 2 adjacent to the first, which received consent in 2008. Construction of both mounting
Siemens Wind Power
Siemens AG ( ) is a German Multinational corporation, multinational technology Conglomerate (company), conglomerate. It is focused on Industrial control system, industrial automation, Building automation , building automation, rail transport a ...
SWT-3.6-107 turbines took place between 2008 and 2010.
In 2010 planning began on a demonstration project Gunfleet Sands 3, used to test Siemens' 6 MW wind turbine model; two such turbines were installed in 2013.
Gunfleet Sands 1 & 2
Gunfleet Sands 1 & 2 are 7 km southeast of
Clacton-on-Sea
Clacton-on-Sea, often simply called Clacton, is a seaside town and seaside resort, resort in the county of Essex, on the east coast of England. It is located on the Tendring Peninsula and is the largest settlement in the Tendring District, wi ...
,
Essex
Essex ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England, and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Kent across the Thames Estuary to the ...
; in water at depths of (given spring-to-neap tidal range of about 4.6 m); Gunfleet 1 consists of 30 turbines in a 5×6 array, whilst Gunfleet 2 consists of a 9×2 array adjacent, to the southeast; the installed capacities are 108 and 64 MW respectively. The average wind speed is at 60 m elevation.
The turbines connect to a 33 kV offshore substation, which steps up the transmission voltage to 132 kV; the export cable makes landfall at Holland Haven (next to
Holland-on-Sea), and underground cables connect it to the
National Grid at the Cooks Green substation.
Development
Such development near
Clacton-on-Sea
Clacton-on-Sea, often simply called Clacton, is a seaside town and seaside resort, resort in the county of Essex, on the east coast of England. It is located on the Tendring Peninsula and is the largest settlement in the Tendring District, wi ...
began in 1996 under Windmaster Developments; Windmaster was acquired by
Enron
Enron Corporation was an American Energy development, energy, Commodity, commodities, and services company based in Houston, Texas. It was led by Kenneth Lay and developed in 1985 via a merger between Houston Natural Gas and InterNorth, both re ...
in 2000, and passed to
General Electric
General Electric Company (GE) was an American Multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in 1892, incorporated in the New York (state), state of New York and headquartered in Boston.
Over the year ...
(
GE Wind Energy
GE Wind is a division of GE Vernova. The company manufactures and sells wind turbines to the international market. In 2018, GE Wind was the fourth largest wind turbine manufacturer in the world. Vic Abate is the CEO of GE Vernova’s Wind busines ...
) in 2002. A
Round 1 concession for the development was awarded in 2001, and planning consents obtained in 2003/4.
In June 2006 a consent application and environmental statement was submitted to the
Department of Trade and Industry for permission to build and operate an extension (''Gunfleet Sands 2'') to the consented project: up to 22 further turbines with an additional capacity of 64 MW. In December 2006
DONG Energy
Dong or DONG may refer to:
Places
* Dong Lake, or East Lake, a lake in China
* Dong, Arunachal Pradesh, a village in India
* Dong (administrative division) (동 or 洞), a neighborhood division in Korea
Person names
Surnames
* Dǒng (surna ...
acquired the 100-megawatt "Gunfleet 1" project from GE.
A contract for 30
Siemens Wind Power
Siemens AG ( ) is a German Multinational corporation, multinational technology Conglomerate (company), conglomerate. It is focused on Industrial control system, industrial automation, Building automation , building automation, rail transport a ...
3.6 MW turbines was signed in April 2007.
The application for Gunfleet Sands 2 rested with decision maker the
Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform in June 2007,
who gave its permission the next year.
Construction

Construction began in 2008, with initial work including onshore infrastructure and cable installation.
A formal
groundbreaking
Groundbreaking, also known as cutting, sod-cutting, turning the first sod, turf-cutting, or a sod-turning ceremony, is a traditional ceremony in many cultures that celebrates the first day of construction for a building or other project. Such cer ...
ceremony was held in April 2008.
The first turbine was installed in April 2009.
MT Højgaard was contracted to instal the monopile foundations; work started in October 2008;
Sif
In Norse mythology, Sif is a golden-haired goddess associated with earth. Sif is attested in the ''Poetic Edda'', compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, and the ''Prose Edda'', written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturl ...
supplied the monopiles and transition pieces, and
Smulders supplied the wind turbine foundations,
The cabling was supplied by
Prysmian,
[ Gunfleet Sands Offshore Wind Farm (LORC) ''Substations, Inter-Array & Export Cables''] Bladt Industries
Bladt Industries A/S is an international steel contractor specialising in large-scale and highly complex steel structures. It operate within three key areas of business providing steel solutions for the wind and renewable energy sector, for the o ...
constructed the offshore monopile substation superstructure,
with electrical equipment supplied by
Areva T&D and
ABB Group
ABB Group is a Swedish-Swiss multinational electrical engineering corporation. Incorporated in Switzerland as ABB Ltd., and headquartered in Zurich, it is dual-listed on the Nasdaq Nordic exchange in Stockholm, Sweden, and the SIX Swiss Exch ...
.
Construction of the wind farm was delayed, due to cable layer Oceanteam going into administration in May 2009 and the breakdown of
liftboat ''KS Titan 2''.
Electrical generation began in August 2009. The wind farm was fully operational by March 2010; the wind farm was formally opened on 15 June 2010 by Anders Eldrup (
DONG Energy
Dong or DONG may refer to:
Places
* Dong Lake, or East Lake, a lake in China
* Dong, Arunachal Pradesh, a village in India
* Dong (administrative division) (동 or 洞), a neighborhood division in Korea
Person names
Surnames
* Dǒng (surna ...
) and the UK's Energy Minister
Charles Hendry
Charles Hendry, (born 6 May 1959) is a British Conservative Party politician. Formerly the member of parliament for High Peak between the 1992 and 1997 general elections, he was returned as the MP for Wealden in 2001. In May 2010 he was ...
. Cost of the development was 4 billion Danish Kroner.
Large-scale development of British wind farms was enabled by their kickstart subsidies: set in 2010 at a long term rate of 1.20 Danish Kroner per
kWh, compared to about 0.50 Kroner (
Horns Rev 2
Horns Rev is an offshore wind farm in Danish waters in the North Sea.
The wind farm was built in three phases, the first coming online in 2002, the second in 2009 and the third in 2019.
Horns Rev 1, the first phase, was the first large-scale o ...
) in Denmark.
An operations and servicing center was built in
Brightlingsea
Brightlingsea (, traditionally , , ) is a coastal town and civil parish in the Tendring District, Tendring district of Essex, England. It is situated between Colchester and Clacton-on-Sea, at the mouth of the River Colne, Essex, River Colne, on ...
, Essex where a former boatyard stood.
Operational history
The wind farm produced between 450 and 520 GWh between 2010 and 2012, with a
capacity factor
The net capacity factor is the unitless ratio of actual electrical energy output over a given period of time to the theoretical maximum electrical energy output over that period. The theoretical maximum energy output of a given installation is def ...
of 31–35% (2011/12). Its
levelised cost has been put at £122 per MWh.
The transmission assets were divested in July 2011 to ''TC Gunfleet Sands OFTO Limited'' due to regulatory change.
In September 2011
Marubeni Corporation acquired a 49.9% shareholding of the farm for £200 million. In 2013 Marubeni divested part of its stake to the
Development Bank of Japan
is a Japanese development bank incorporated on 1 October 2008 under the Development Bank of Japan Inc. Law (Law No. 85 of 2007). Current ownership structure of DBJ is solely owned by the Government of Japan through the Minister of Finance.
Ov ...
.
During the
St Jude storm of October 2013, wind speeds of were measured at the wind farm.
Gunfleet Sands 3
Ambit
A planning application for the ''Gunfleet Sands 3 - Demonstration Project (GFS 3)'' was submitted in 2010. The project consisted of a wind farm about 8.5 km southeast of Clacton. It was for testing new wind farm equipment ready for the
Round 3 wind farm letting process. Two wind turbine installations were proposed.
The development required a separate export cable and grid connection to the prior farm; a planning application for the onshore electrical facilities and cabling was submitted in November 2011.
Suppliers
Inter-array and export cables (at 33 kV) were supplied by JDR Cables.
The monopile foundations and transition pieces were supplied by
Bladt Industries
Bladt Industries A/S is an international steel contractor specialising in large-scale and highly complex steel structures. It operate within three key areas of business providing steel solutions for the wind and renewable energy sector, for the o ...
and installed by
Ballast Nedam
Ballast Nedam is a Dutch-based construction and engineering company headquartered in Nieuwegein. The company resulted from the 1969 merger between Amsterdamse Ballast Maatschappij, founded in 1877, and Nederlandse Aannemingsmaatschappij, founded ...
in 2012. Two Siemens 6MW turbines were installed in January 2013 by
A2SEA.
Productivity
The site began generating power in April 2013. A blade replacement took place in mid 2013 after one of the tips was damaged. The facility was officially opened on 12 September 2013 by UK Energy Minister
Greg Barker
Greg Barker is an American filmmaker and producer. In 2011, ''The New York Times'' described Barker as “a filmmaker of artistic and political consequence.”
Previous films include '' Sergio'' (short-listed in 2010 for the Academy Award for B ...
.
See also
*
Wind power in the United Kingdom
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.
By 2023, the UK had over 11 thousand ...
*
List of offshore wind farms in the United Kingdom
This is a list of offshore wind farms within the national maritime boundary, maritime boundaries of the United Kingdom.
In April 2025 the nameplate capacity of offshore wind farms in operation was approximately 16 GW, with a further 8 GW under con ...
*
List of offshore wind farms in the North Sea
*
List of offshore wind farms
This article lists the largest offshore wind farms that are currently operational rated by nameplate capacity. It also lists the largest offshore wind farms currently under construction, the largest proposed offshore wind farms, and offshore ...
References
Sources
;Gunfleet 1 & 2
*
**
*
*
;Gunfleet 3
*
*
External links
{{South East powerstations
Thames Estuary
Offshore wind farms in the North Sea
Power stations in the East of England
Wind farms in England
Ørsted (company) wind farms
Round 2 offshore wind farms
Marubeni
2010 establishments in England
Energy infrastructure completed in 2010