Work begins in world's largest wind farm

ESSEN, Germany, Oct. 20 (UPI) -- Development of the world's largest offshore wind farm off the coast of England was launched Wednesday, a German energy company said.

RWE Innogy announced that development of a stage of the Dogger Bank wind farm was under way about 120 miles off the coast of England.

The project is divided into four stages because of the size of the wind farm. First stage construction starts in an area encompassing 770 square miles. The wind turbines at the first site will combine to generate around 1,400 megawatts of electricity.

"The offshore wind project Dogger Bank is one of the biggest energy projects in the world, similar to the Three Gorges Dam in China or the Desertec Project in northern Africa," said Martin Skiba, head of offshore wind development at RWE Innogy, in a statement. "It … represents the aim which the entire offshore wind industry has been heading for."

The Dogger Bank project will cover an area about 10 times the size of Berlin and generate about 9,000 MW of electricity by 2020, the company said.