Launched in 2018, the Rampion wind farm off the Brighton coast in England powers 350,000 homes at maximum capacity. Thanks to an enterprising local fisher, the Manhattan-sized energy system is also a tourist attraction, generating a trade in sightseers willing to brave rough waters for a closer look.
“Beautiful,” “dramatic,” and “majestic” were among the descriptors day-trippers used on one expedition last month, watching the parade of 116 massive turbines looming above their heads and stretching out to the horizon, eight miles out into the English Channel, reports The Times.
Measuring 140 metres above the water’s surface, each with three 55-metre blades, the huge towers have proven an unexpected tourist attraction, drawing the curious from as far away as the United States to marvel at the colossal green energy system.
“Ever since the wind farm was built and I could see it from the shore, I wanted to come and see what it was all about,” Ian Ogborn, a Border Force official from West Sussex, told the Times during a recent trip out to see the wind farm on a fishing vessel captained by Brighton fisher Paul Dyer, 60.
Dyer has long been supplementing his fishing income by leading scuba-diving and sea-fishing expeditions. Recognizing the tourist potential of offshore wind farms, he bought the domain name rampionoffshorewindfarm.co.uk immediately after the Rampion project went public.
“I found it all quite interesting and I thought other people would,” Dyer told the Times. “We get all sorts of people coming out to take a look. They are mostly middle-aged and onwards, and many are from the local area, but we’ve had some from as far as America.”
After receiving the two-hour, £45 (C$80) trip for his 55th birthday, Ogborn was clearly delighted to see the engineering marvel up close.
“You hear about this stuff on the news all the time. Like everything, you will have people that complain because they say they are ugly. But these are pretty cool. I’m amazed by the engineering—how these big contraptions just sit in the sea.”
More such “big contraptions” out on the water are in the offing, with Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour government planning to quadruple domestic offshore wind resources by 2030, the Times writes.
Included in this expansion are plans for a Rampion 2, a 90-turbine extension, with towers soaring to 325 metres above the water, more than twice the height of the current ones. Projections are that Rampion 2 will generate sufficient power to keep a million average UK homes humming.
“There will be people that object to them, but I find them quite majestic,” Bristol local Julie Quanstrom, who bought the trip for her husband for Christmas, told the Times.
