MOD paves way for new wind-farm-friendly radars

The MOD has agreed a deal for ener­gy com­pa­nies to fund new wind-farm-friend­ly radars, with the poten­tial to unlock more than four gigawatts (GW) of renew­able ener­gy — enough to pow­er over two mil­lion homes.

 -
Lock­heed Mar­tin TPS-77 Air Defence Radar [Pic­ture: © 2012 Lock­heed Mar­tin Cor­po­ra­tion]
Source: Min­istry of Defence, UK
Click to enlarge

A new Air Defence Radar that is not adverse­ly affect­ed by wind farms has been installed and test­ed on the Nor­folk coast, allow­ing for the poten­tial releas­ing of 3.3GW of renew­able ener­gy. Until recent­ly, the MOD has object­ed to wind farms locat­ed near Air Defence Radars due to the inter­fer­ence caused by the tur­bine blades. 

In an award-win­ning fol­low-on deal, the MOD recent­ly ordered two more of the wind-farm-friend­ly radars, fund­ed by devel­op­ers, which will be installed in Northum­ber­land and York­shire, unlock­ing a fur­ther 750 megawatts (MW) of renew­able ener­gy. This deal will pro­mote fur­ther devel­op­ment of wind farms and help the Gov­ern­ment reduce car­bon emissions. 

Min­is­ter for Defence Per­son­nel, Wel­fare and Vet­er­ans Andrew Robathan said: 

“The MOD was instru­men­tal in con­vinc­ing the ener­gy com­pa­nies to col­lab­o­rate and joint­ly fund the cost of the radar, meet­ing oper­a­tional require­ments and ulti­mate­ly enabling the gen­er­a­tion of more renew­able ener­gy. This is good news for all par­ties to this arrangement.” 

Ener­gy Min­is­ter Charles Hendry said: 

“We must rapid­ly increase the lev­els of home­grown clean ener­gy pro­duced in the UK. Wind farms and oth­er forms of renew­able ener­gy will help boost our ener­gy secu­ri­ty, and ulti­mate­ly our nation­al secu­ri­ty. I am pleased that an out­come has been reached that is ben­e­fi­cial to our nation­al secu­ri­ty, ener­gy secu­ri­ty and decar­bon­i­sa­tion goals.” 

“Wind farms and oth­er forms of renew­able ener­gy will help boost our ener­gy secu­ri­ty, and ulti­mate­ly our nation­al secu­ri­ty.”
Charles Hendry

On behalf of the MOD, Ser­co installed a Lock­heed Mar­tin TPS-77 Air Defence Radar near Cromer, on the Nor­folk coast. The MOD has there­fore removed plan­ning objec­tions to five fur­ther off­shore wind farms in the Greater Wash. The new TPS-77 was deliv­ered in a project between Ser­co, Lock­heed Mar­tin, the MOD’s Defence Equip­ment and Sup­port (DE&S), and the Depart­ment of Ener­gy and Cli­mate Change, to pro­duce a radar not affect­ed by wind farm tur­bine blades. 

The radar project was deliv­ered on time, with­in cost, and met strin­gent per­for­mance require­ments, and, as a result, the DE&S project team was short­list­ed as one of the top three of 750 project teams in the Civ­il Ser­vice Awards 2011, and won an inter­nal MOD award. 

The two new wind-farm-friend­ly radars in Northum­ber­land and York­shire, replac­ing exist­ing radars, pro­vide the poten­tial to remove objec­tions to mul­ti­ple future wind farms, esti­mat­ed to be able to pro­vide in total over 750MW of renew­able energy. 

Press release
Min­istry of Defence, UK 

Face­book and/or on Twit­ter

Team GlobDef

Seit 2001 ist GlobalDefence.net im Internet unterwegs, um mit eigenen Analysen, interessanten Kooperationen und umfassenden Informationen für einen spannenden Überblick der Weltlage zu sorgen. GlobalDefence.net war dabei die erste deutschsprachige Internetseite, die mit dem Schwerpunkt Sicherheitspolitik außerhalb von Hochschulen oder Instituten aufgetreten ist.

Alle Beiträge ansehen von Team GlobDef →