Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said wind power could help end unstable energy prices for British consumers as he opened the country’s newest offshore wind farm.
Mr Clegg and Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Ed Davey were shown round the new Centrica Energy Lincs site in Grimsby.
The £1 billion offshore wind farm is capable of powering 200,000 homes – two-thirds of the homes in Lincolnshire.
Speaking at the opening at its base in Grimsby Docks, where he unveiled a plaque, Mr Clegg said the project reflected the “more diverse” ways the Government wants energy to be generated.
“It’s been a real privilege to see this rapid development of this technology,” he said, adding that he had seen the project grow from virtually nothing when he visited the site around four years ago.
“We as a country are recovering from probably one of the greatest cardiac arrests in our economy, back in 2008, that we have witnessed in over a generation.
“As a country we have over-relied for far, far too long on energy imports from volatile and unstable parts of the world, reflected in volatile, unstable prices faced by British consumers.”
His visit coincided with the coalition publishing its long-term industrial strategy in the off-shore wind sector, he added.
Mr Clegg said the new strategy was to “spread our bets and be more diverse in the way in which we generate energy”.
Centrica’s managing director, Mark Hanafin, said the new site reinforced Britain’s role as a world leader in offshore renewable energy.
“Today the UK has more installed offshore wind than the rest of the world combined,” he said. “We have the largest wind farms, we have the people with the knowledge and the expertise to build them and the UK has ambitious targets to generate more renewable energy, much of it from wind.
“The wind industry needs the Government to continue to support projects like Lincs.
“It’s projects like these that will give confidence to companies in the wind industry so that the supply chain has confidence to invest. That’s what will provide the thriving renewables industry in the UK.”