On July 19 July, a shipment of 8,000 tonnes of of high voltage cable arrived in the port of Rotterdam. The cable will connect the 700 MW Hollandse Kust Zuid Alpha offshore platform to the onshore grid.
A consortium of Van Oord and Hellenic Cables from Greece was contracted by TenneT in September 2018 to design, manufacture and installation of 220 kV cables and the connection to the onshore Maasvlakte 2 high-voltage station. It concerns a cable route of 42 km. The cable was produced by Hellenic Cables and transported to Rotterdam on the 122 m long barge CC Atlantique, towed by tug Kamarina. Van Oord contracted the barge from Acta Marine.
Blue Offshore was contracted by Van Oord to supply a full cable transport spread. Besides two large carousels, with each carrousel carrying approximately 4,000 tonnes of cable, and the dedicated control systems, the company also provied all deck engineering, technical crew and complete mobilisation service. Blue Offshore said it concerns the world’s first certified double basket carrousel barge mobilised.
The cables will next be loaded onto Van Oord’s cable lay vessel the Nexus for offshore installation. A spare cable will be delivered to TenneT in Eemshaven.
The Hollandse Kust (zuid) Alpha grid connection is to be completed in 2021. Beta is scheduled for completion in 2022. Blue Offshore will also be responsible for delivering the full cable transport spread for this connection.
