Construction of a wind farm substation in Heysham, Lancashire has started.

The Walney Extension Offshore Wind Farm is expected to have a capacity of 660MW – equivalent to powering 460,000 homes.

It will be located around 19km off the Cumbrian coast next to the Walney Offshore Wind Farm which has a capacity of 367.2MW.

The UK Government gave the permission to develop the substation in November 2014.

DONG Energy is responsible for the project and expects the onshore cable installation to be completed in early 2016.

The company claims it could create more than 200 new jobs in north west England or 500 positions across the UK.

John Agnew, Deputy Construction Manager for the onshore substation at DONG Energy said: “The onshore substation is one of the most important features of the wind farm as it will take the electricity generated and feed it into the national grid for people to use.”