Humber Gateway Wind Farm is a consented offshore wind farm to be located 8 km east of Spurn Point off the coast of Humberside, in the North Sea, England. It is being developed by Humber Wind Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of E.ON UK plc.^[1] The farm gets its name from the estuary of the Humber River which enters the North Sea at this point. The farm is 8 km from the shore, in water depths between 11 and 18m and will cover an area of approximately 35 sq km.

In 2004 Humber Wind Ltd, was awarded a 40 year lease from The Crown Estate to develop a wind farm at Humber Gateway as part of the second UK offshore wind farm tendering process known as "Round 2".

The project includes constructing the wind turbines and their foundations, building offshore substations, installing power cables both undersea and a 30 km onshore cable and a new electrical substation required for connection into the UK National Grid near Salt End, east of Hull. This work is estimated to take about 2 years.

The Humber Gateway Wind Farm planning application was filed in April 2008 and consent was granted in February 2011, the first UK offshore scheme to be given consent since December 2008. The original application was for between 42 and 83 turbines with a nameplate capacity of 300 MW. However planning consent was granted for 77 turbines. This will provide up to 230 MW of power.

Planning

A number of consents and licences have been obtained for the construction and operation of Humber Gateway:

• Consent for the offshore elements of the project (comprising the turbines, their foundations, the offshore substation, the inter array cables and the export cable to shore) obtained from the Department of Energy and Climate Change (formerly the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform).
• Consent for the proposed underground cable route, associated works and a separate consent for a new substation obtained from East Riding of Yorkshire Council (the local planning authority) under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 (Section 57).
• Consent under Section 36 of the Electricity Act (1989) to construct and operate the offshore wind farm, including all the ancillary infrastructure.
• Licence under the Section 5 of the Food and Environment Protection Act (1985) to deposit material on the sea bed such as turbine foundations and buried cables.
• Consent under Section 34 of the Coast Protection Act (1949) in order to make provision for the safety of navigation in relation to buried cables.

In addition these applications have been accompanied by three Environmental Statements to meet EU and UK law.