Abstract
E.ON Climate & Renewables UK Rampion Offshore Wind Limited (E.ON) is proposing to construct an offshore wind farm off the Sussex coast, including
associated onshore infrastructure, to generate and export up to 700MW of power to the national electricity transmission system (the Project).
The Project will involve the construction and operation of up to 175 threebladed wind turbines within a 139km2 area of the English Channel, some 13km from the coastline. Connections will be made between the wind farm and the existing electricity grid by way of offshore and onshore cabling, and a new electricity substation at Bolney in Mid Sussex.
As the proposal forms a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project, E.ON has submitted an application seeking development consent to the Planning Inspectorate under the provisions of the Planning Act 2008.
As part of the application, an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) has been undertaken to understand and predict the effects that the Project may have on the receiving environment. This has considered the effects that the construction, operation and decommissioning stages of the Project might cause to the existing condition of the environment, and takes into account measures incorporated into the project design and other methods (termed mitigation) that will be employed to reduce the significance of those effects.
The findings of the EIA are reported in the Environmental Statement (ES) which forms part of the submitted application documentation.
This document forms the Non Technical Summary (NTS) of the EIA process. It comprises a standalone document that presents a summary of the key findings of the assessment in an easy to understand manner, free from technical jargon.