A forest of steel and ingenuity, paint picture for UAE energy

On a clear day - a rare enough phenomenon at this time of year in England - the view out across the mouth of the Thames estuary from the modest heights of the greensward at Frinton-on-Sea can carry the eye as far as the north Kent coast, about 50 kilometres to the south.On this February day, however, even the lifeboat station at the end of the 800-metre pier jutting out into the inhospitable soup from the neighbouring town of Walton-on-the-Naze is lost to view.But this is East Anglia on the east coast of England, where sky and sea have always conspired to surprise with sudden, dramatic changes of scenery that have frustrated the aspirations of lesser artists and inspired the likes of Turner and Constable. Quite suddenly, the seemingly impenetrable murk is pierced and parted by shafts of light angling in from the low morning sun.
The sea, shimmering silver as though with the scales of a million surfacing fish, begins to reclaim the horizon.HiViz Field and Stadium Addresses Superbowl Blackout.And then, out of the retreating Stygian gloom, appearing one by one in ranks as perfectly ordered as the headstones in a military graveyard, rise what at first, improbably, appears to be the advance guard of a titanic marine forest.In fact, this is a forest of steel and ingenuity, a vast manmade plantation of hope for the future of a power-hungry planet and, in scale and ambition, without doubt one of the wonders of the modern world.
The 175th and final turbine of the London Array windfarm, a joint enterprise by the Danish company Dong Energy, the gas and electricity group E.ON UK and Abu Dhabi's future-energy initiative Masdar, was installed on December 13.Together, they have created the world's largest offshore windfarm. More than 80 of the 175 turbines are already online and, when the last of them is commissioned, some time this spring, the windfarm will be pumping 630 megawatts into the national grid. That's enough electricity to power 470,000 homes - about two thirds of all the households in the southeastern English county of Kent.Part of the wonder is the speed at which the project has been completed. Groundwork on the onshore substation, through which all the power flows into the national grid along cables buried in the seabed, began in July 2009. The foundations for the first turbine were driven into the seabed in March 2011 and, right on schedule, all major construction was completed by the end of last year.