His key responsibility will be to lead the Forewind Consortium in the delivery of its consents, as agreed with The Crown Estate, for a target installed capacity of 9 GW for the Dogger Bank offshore wind farm, though the zone has a potential for approximately 13 GW.

“With Dogger Bank, Forewind has the opportunity to take a leading role in the offshore wind industry and set the standards for project delivery by turning an extraordinary concept into reality,” Clarke says.

“Opportunities such as this do not come along often and while there will be major challenges, I look forward to leading this diverse team, comprising members of each of the owner companies, and satisfying the requirements of our key stakeholders.”

Forewind’s four partners are: SSE (Scottish and Southern Energy Plc); RWE npower renewables, the UK subsidiary of RWE Innogy, Statkraft and Statoil.