The rights to develop three wind farms in Norfolk have been sold by Swedish Energy giant Vattenfall to German rival RWE for nearly £1 billion.

The projects, Norfolk Boreas, Norfolk Vanguard West and Norfolk Vanguard East, are known collectively as the Norfolk Offshore Wind Zone and are three of the biggest wind farms in Britain.

Vattenfall confirmed the sale after stopping work on one of the three sites in July this year due to it being hit by massive cost inflation.

The government has given consent for the building of all three wind farms to go ahead and, when built, they will supply around 4.2 gigawatts of power to the UK’s grid, enough to supply energy to four million households.

Vattenfall chief executive Anna Borg said: “The Norfolk Offshore Wind Zone is incredibly important for the energy transition and reaching net zero.

“Today’s agreement with RWE is great news for the UK’s energy security, ensuring the zone’s continued journey towards providing clean electricity for over four million homes as well as jobs and investment into the UK.

“Both the UK and the offshore market remain attractive over the long term and we will focus our offshore investments in projects which are appropriate to our current risk appetite while continuing to operate and grow our existing fleet of assets.”

Vattenfall said that since signing that contract the cost of building a wind farm had soared by around 40pc and it was therefore decided to pause development on the site.

The firm will stay in the UK as it still runs on and offshore wind farms and is developing a nearly 800-megawatt (MW) floating wind farm in the North Sea.