Energy firm Vattenfall will start work next week on a £165m extension to the Kentish Flats Wind Farm adding an extra 15 turbines by the summer.

Offshore construction - to prepare the sea bed for 30km of cable from the wind farm to the Whitstable coast - is scheduled to take place on Wednesday.

Next month, work to connect power through electricity lines from Hampton Pier to Red House Farm substation in Thornden Wood Road will also begin.

Vattenfall’s project director Matthew Green said: “Kentish Flats Extension was consented in spring 2013 and since then we have been planning, organising and contracting.

"We’re now ready to go and by this time next year we plan to be generating low carbon power from all 15 wind turbines.

“Building an offshore wind farm is no easy task; that is why it is one of the most exciting engineering challenges around today...” - Vattenfall's Matthew Green

“Building an offshore wind farm is no easy task; that is why it is one of the most exciting engineering challenges around today.”

The Swedish company’s main electrical contractors Bohlen & Doyen will create trenches along the sea bed using an underwater jetting tool before laying the cables in May.

During construction, notices will be issued to mariners and the council’s foreshore department to make sure water users are kept updated as work progresses.

The firm has set a timescale to deploy the 145m-high turbines by July with all of them being able to generate power by September.

When finished the wind farm will have an installed capacity of 49.5MW - capable of producing enough power to meet electricity demands of 35,000 households.

For more information on the project follow @VattenfallKent on Twitter.