Van Oord has completed the installation and burial of the inter-array cables for CrossWind’s Hollandse Kust Noord offshore wind farm. The company installed 69 inter-array cables with a total length of 140 km.
Van Oord designed a 66kV inter-array grid for the wind farm. Dutch manufacturer TKF (Twentsche Kabelfabriek) supplied the cables. Van Oord’s cable-laying vessel Nexus, equipped with a large 5,000 tonnes capacity cable carousel, installed the cables. Trencher Dig-It, operated from the vessel Subsea Viking, subsequently buried the cables to the required depth of between 1.0 and 1.5m. The Dig-It, a Tracked Remotely Operated Vehicle (TROV), can be used for burying cables both in “jetting mode” for sandy soils and in “chain cutter mode”’ for harder soils. At the Hollandse Kust Noord project both modes were used successfully.
Balance of Plant
Crosswind, a joint venture between Shell and Eneco, contracted Van Oord for the complete Balance of Plant scope for the construction of the wind farm. As a Balance of Plant contractor, Van Oord’s activities encompass the design, engineering, procurement and transport and installation of the wind turbine foundations, inter-array cables, as well as the transport and installation of the wind turbines.
Earlier this year, Van Oord completed the installation of all 70 monopile foundations for the wind farm. Currently, Van Oord is deploying two offshore installation vessels to install the wind turbine generators and is also performing the electrical termination works of the cables in the wind turbine generators.
Green energy
Hollandse Kust Noord is located around 18.5 kilometres off the coast of the Netherlands, near Egmond aan Zee. While construction is still in full swing, the Hollandse Kust Noord offshore wind park already produced its first megawatt hours (MWh) of green electricity and delivered it to the Dutch mainland. In coming months, production capacity will be constantly increased. Once finished, the wind park will have a total installed capacity of 759 MW, generating at least 3.3 TWh per year. This is enough renewable electricity to meet the equivalent of 2.8% of the Netherlands’ electricity demand. Source: Van Oord
