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Ørsted in the UK

Our offshore wind farms provide the UK with reliable, homegrown, cost-effective energy while ensuring positive impacts on nature.

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Enhancing the UK’s energy security

The world’s largest offshore wind farms

Innovative battery energy storage system

Developing our future work force

Supporting the growing UK supply chain

Bringing benefits to local communities

Biodiversity: Green energy that revives nature

Ørsted is the global leader in developing, constructing and operating offshore wind farms. The UK, where we have been operating for over 20 years, is our largest market.

We currently have 12 operational offshore wind farms in the UK, one under construction, and a further two in our development pipeline. We have invested over £18 billion in the UK building our offshore wind farms.

We are committed for the long-term, both to leading the change to green energy – we generate over 7% of the UK’s electricity – and to investing in the communities where we work.

Our 12 UK offshore wind farms have a capacity of 5.7 GW. They are capable of generating enough green energy to power almost 6 million UK homes a year¹.

Our wind farms generate over 7% of the UK’s electricity

Our wind farms generate over 7% of the UK’s electricity and when Hornsea 3 starts operating in 2027, we will be generating over 10% of the UK’s electricity.

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^{1 This based on an average household electricity consumption of 3.689MWh (Enerdata) and a load factor for offshore wind of 48%.}

Hornsea One offshore wind farm, 174 7 MW turbines with a total capacity of 1.2 GW. Located 120 km to Yorkshire coast, UK.

Enhancing the UK’s energy security

Working together with local communities, suppliers, partners, and the government, we’ve helped make the UK global leaders in offshore wind.

The competitive Contracts for Difference (CfDs) allocation scheme for low carbon electricity, the industry’s maturing technology, and Ørsted’s many years of experience, have all played an essential role in driving down the cost of offshore wind in the UK to the point where it is now amongst the cheapest technology for generating electricity.

Long-term this will lead to a reduction in consumers’ bills and will be vital if we are to enhance the UK’s energy security and ensure we are not reliant on importing oil and gas.

The world’s largest offshore wind farms

Two wind turbine technicians in safety helmets and harnesses stand on top of a turbine nacelle with the sea and offshore wind turbines in the background.

We are currently building the world’s single largest offshore wind farm – Hornsea 3. With a generating capacity of 2.9 GW, Hornsea 3 will deliver green power to more than 3.3 million UK homes.

Hornsea 3 is Ørsted’s third gigawatt-scale offshore wind farm in the Hornsea zone, following Hornsea 1 (1.2 GW) and Hornsea 2 (1.3 GW), which are already being operated out of Ørsted’s operations and maintenance hub in Grimsby.

Innovative battery energy storage system

As we grow our offshore wind generation, we need to increase our ability to store excess energy to help balance the grid.

To that end, we’re building a battery energy storage system on the same site as Hornsea 3’s onshore substation. The system will have a capacity of 600 MWh (and a 300 MW power rating), equivalent to the daily power consumption of 80,000 UK homes. Upon completion, the battery energy storage system will be one of the largest in Europe.

Our development of the Hornsea Zone is helping to underpin the UK’s ambitious climate and clean energy targets, while increasing energy security, creating high quality local jobs and protecting biodiversity.

Developing our future work force

As a major UK employer, with around 1,250 employees, we are committed to developing people with the right skills to meet the UK’s offshore wind ambition.

Since 2017, we have supported over 95 wind turbine technician apprenticeships on the East and West Coasts. Most of our former apprentices have successfully completed the four-year programme and become full-time Ørsted employees.

Supporting the growing UK supply chain

In the past five years alone, we have directly placed major contracts with over 250 UK companies, with many hundreds more supported indirectly to help build and maintain our offshore wind farms. Over 70 of these UK suppliers have supported our global portfolio across Europe, Asia Pacific and the US.

Working with the supply chain has delivered increased economic value to the UK, through technical innovation, job creation, exports, and local investment. We are committed to putting the UK at the heart of the green transformation.

Bringing benefits to local communities

We create thousands of jobs during the construction phase of our projects and offer long-term, skilled work in the UK coastal towns where we base our operations such as Barrow and Grimsby.

We support the communities in which we work through grants, donations, and sponsorships. Our four Community Benefit Funds have so far awarded over £13.7 million to almost 900 local social and environmental projects along the East and West coasts near our projects.

In Grimsby, we committed an additional £1 million to the building and development of the Horizon Youth Zone. The safe, inspiring, purpose-built centre for North East Lincolnshire’s young people opened in February 2026.

We also support local training, skills development and encourage the study of Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) in schools local to our wind farms through our partnerships with University Technical Colleges, the educational charity Teach First, and the social enterprise Stemettes.®

Opening of Horizon Youth Zone

Biodiversity: Green energy that revives nature

Ørsted has set an ambition to deliver a net-positive biodiversity impact from all new renewable energy projects that are commissioned from 2030 at the latest.

Ørsted works to avoid, mitigate, and address the potential biodiversity impact of its projects, with one of the renewable energy industry's most experienced in-house teams of environment specialists.

In the UK, we're partnering with both Yorkshire and Lincolnshire Wildlife Trusts on our Wilder Humber initiative. The ambitious project is seeking to restore coastal ecosystems to mitigate climate change and support biodiversity in the UK’s Humber estuary. The project is focused on bolstering interconnected habitats and species – such as seagrass, salt marsh, seagrass, and oysters.

Discover more about our coastal restoration project

The expert take

Read the expert take on the latest debates, topics and issues in sustainability, renewable energy, and the green transition.

Discover the expert take