Centrica secures wind farm financing

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LONDON, June 8 (UPI) -- British utility company Centrica announced it received more than $600 million worth of agreements to help finance a 270 megawatt offshore wind farm.

Centrica announced that a consortium of 10 commercial banks provided agreements for the Lincs offshore wind farm.

Centrica has a 50 percent stake in the project alongside Danish utility company DONG Energy and Siemens Project Ventures GmbH. The 270 MW facility is expected to go into full service in early 2013, providing enough electricity to meet the energy demands of 200,000 homes every year, Centrica said.

The project off the British coast will consist of 75 wind turbines.

The British government said it's on the way to generating as much as 18 gigawatts of wind energy by 2020, compared with the 1.6 GW available now.

The United Kingdom is the world leader in offshore wind capacity. The country aims to generate 15 percent of its overall energy from renewable resources by 2020.

Construction of the wind farm started in 2010. Some operations from the Linc offshore wind farm are expected this year.