by business editor Trevor Sturgess

Firms across the county are being offered a chance to win wind farm deals.

Vattenfall, the European energy company, is holding a business supplier event in Canterbury next month, and wants to talk to businesses interested in helping to build a proposed extension to the five-year-old Kentish Flats Offshore Wind Farm. The farm now has 30 turbines and Vattenfall wants to add up to 17 more.

A go-ahead for the project would mean an extra 150,000 megawatt hours (MWh) of power each year, enough to meet the electricity needs of 35,000 UK households.

The event, from 10am to 1pm on May 6 at the University of Kent's Darwin College, will update firms and others on the Vattenfall procurement process. It will also give project timings and introduce firms to key Vattenfall staff.

This is the first of two planned supplier events, with the second in 2013 to follow the appointment of key contractors supplying and installing turbines, foundations and cables. Vattenfall says it is with these contractors that most local companies could win business.

Project manager Göran Loman is encouraging businesses to find out more. He said: "Although we are not yet ready to make any commitments at this early stage, we do think it's important to give companies in the area an edge by providing information and getting them to think about how they could help to build the extension and win some business.

"With the construction of our Thanet Offshore Wind Farm we contracted with 70 companies and around half were local to Kent, so there should be something in it for the local economy if we get permission to build an extension to Kentish Flats."

• Register by email to George Oatridge at the University of Kent - enterprise@kent.ac.uk - or telephone 01227 824326. Registrations should be made by May 1.