Farm Energy is already building the world's largest offshore wind farm, the 1,000-megawatt London Array project in the Thames Eastuary. It hopes a more streamlined planning system in Britain will help its new plan become a reality more quickly.

"We feel that its very early days... We are consulting early because we understand how long these projects take to come to fruition. The London Array is probably in its tenth or ninth year," Farm Energy director Michael Huntingford told Reuters.

"I think the new planning system would have helped enormously for the London Array and I do hope that there is a more sensible approach for projects of national significance."

On Monday, Communities and Local Government Minister Ruth Kelly will set out policies to ease a planning process that has held up several big wind power projects at a time Britain wants to reduce its carbon emissions.

The change should take years off planning applications and remove a major obstacles to private investment in important energy projects.

Local councils and opposition groups have in the past held up energy infrastructure projects, sometimes indefinitely. But Devon County Council in southwest England has already welcomed the Atlantic Array plan.

"The proposal represents the best opportunity for the local economy in northern Devon in a decade," the council's strategic planning director, Humphrey Temperley, said in a statement.