This article is more than 11 months old

This article is more than 11 months old

The largest offshore wind turbines ever built will begin powering millions of British homes using blades more than 100 metres long by the early 2020s.

Each of the new mega-turbines planned for the world’s biggest offshore windfarm at Dogger Bank in the North Sea will reach 220 metres high and generate enough electricity for 16,000 homes.

The turbines are almost a third more powerful than typical turbines used today, each dwarfing the size of the London Eye, and will help to reduce the cost of generating wind power.

Together, the new generation turbines – built by GE Renewable Energy – will make up a windfarm capable of generating enough renewable electricity to power 4.5m homes from 130km (80 miles) off the Yorkshire coast, or 5% of the UK’s total power supply.

The Dogger Bank project, to be built from next year in a joint venture between SSE and Norway’s Equinor, will be the largest windfarm in the world once it begins generating power in 2023.

The pair is aiming to develop an “industrial wind hub” in the North Sea made up of three interconnected offshore windfarms using the GE Renewables’ turbines.

John Lavelle, the offshore wind boss at GE Renewable Energy, said the deal with Dogger Bank would bring “the world’s most powerful offshore wind turbine to the world’s largest offshore wind market”.

“We have an important role to play in the UK’s offshore wind ambitions and in delivering further carbon emission reductions,” he said.

Dogger Bank is one of a new wave of offshore wind projects which will generate renewable electricity at no extra cost to consumers after a subsidy auction fell to record lows last month.

Dogger Bank won a contract which will pay its developers around £40 for every megawatt hour of electricity produced, below the typical market price for electricity in the wholesale energy market.

Bjørn Ivar Bergemo, the Dogger Bank Wind Farms project director, said the turbines represented a “step change” in offshore wind technology which helped the project achieve record low support prices.