Our operations

The Lincs wind farm is one of five Centrica renewable projects offshore in the Greater Wash, one of three strategic areas designated by Government in 2002 for offshore wind farm development. Two projects, Lynn and Inner Dowsing, became fully operational in March 2009, and two proposed projects, Docking Shoal and Race Bank, were submitted for consent in December 2008 and January 2009 respectively.

Centrica Energy was awarded an Agreement for Lease from the Crown Estate for the Lincs project in 2003. An application for consent was submitted to Government in January 2007 and approval was granted in October 2008. In October 2009 the Centrica Board gave final investment approval, and construction is expected to commence in 2010. Lincs will be situated eight kilometres off the coast of Skegness next to the Lynn and Inner Dowsing wind farms, and will comprise 75 3.6MW turbines giving a capacity of 270MW. Lincs has a consented capacity of 250MW. The additional 20MW will be constructed in the footprint of the Lynn and Inner Dowsing wind farm development but connected to Lincs transmission.

In December 2009, Centrica announced the sale of a 50% equity stake in the Lincs project to DONG energy and Siemens Project Ventures. Centrica will continue to lead development, construction and operation of the wind farm.

Centrica is drawing on the experience gained during development of its three earlier offshore wind farms. Details of those, Barrow Offshore Wind and Lynn and Inner Dowsing offshore wind farms can be found on this website.

The consent for Lincs was based on a detailed Environmental Impact Assessment, which addressed such issues as marine ecology and ornithology, shipping and navigation, social-economic impacts, commercial fishing and coastal processes. A non-technical summary outlining the outcome of the Environmental Impact Assessment for the Lincs site can be downloaded from the useful downloads section.

It is anticipated that the wind farm will be capable of meeting the annual electricity needs of 200,000 households and will reduce harmful carbon emissions.