Last month, the shore crossing sections of the two export cables for the Hollandse Kust (west Beta) offshore grid connection were installed by NBOS, a consortium of Boskalis and Orient Cable. Dutch company Bezemer Dordrecht provided their hydraulic linear winch C600 to contribute to this operation.
The project was completed by Boskalis’ Giant 7 and their BSSIII burial sledge tool, and Bezemer’s C600. The linear winch was used to pull the burial sledge through the sand onto the beach. The sledge has a height of 22 meters and weighs over 150T. The winch which has a total pulling capacity of 300T, pulled this massive sledge into place with ease.
Once in place, the BSSIII started the operations. Using water jets, the BSSIII fluidised the soil and installed the cable underground. More cable is added as the BSSIII gets pulled forward back into the water by the construction vessel, the GIANT 7. During the installation of this first export cable, the linear winch gets repositioned to a second anchor point to pull the sledge to the second starting position.
Spectators were allowed to witness the operations and learn more about the future wind farm from an info point at the beach, a container with information and a rooftop viewpoint provided by grid owner Tennet.
Both cables have been successfully installed under the dunes. Now this first phase is completed, the cable-laying vessel will take over and install the remaining kilometres of cable towards the wind farm.
The export cables will connect RWE/Oranjewind’s Hollandse Kust West Beta offshore wind farm, via TenneT’s 700 MW so-called ‘Socket at sea’ some 53 kilometers off the coast of Egmond aan Zee, to the national electricity grid.
Source: Bezemer Group
