Yesterday, the grand opening of Windplanblauw, the large-scale wind energy project in the northwest corner of the Dutch province of Flevoland took place. The wind farm is mostly locally owned. This makes it the wind farm that produces the most locally owned green electricity in the Netherlands.
The opening ceremony, taking place in the outskirts of the local town of SwitfterwinT, was preceded in the morning by a press event at the wind farm with three representatives of Windplanblauw. Windplanblauw is a joint project of energy company Vattenfall and SwifterwinT, bringing together 170 entrepreneurs, residents and turbine owners from the Swifterbant region. The project comprises 61 wind turbines of which SwifterwinT owns 47 and Vattenfall owns the remaining turbines.
More than half of wind farm locally owned
Through the SwifterwinT members, 470 people from the Swifterbant region are now financially involved in the wind farm. Windplanblauw is therefor the wind farm that produces the most locally owned green power in the Netherlands. In addition, Windplanblauw has established an area fund, which will invest some 1.5 million euros in support of the village over the next 20 years. The fund is managed by an independent foundation and each village core gets its own share, explains Hans Wichink, Director SwifterwinT.
Getting all landowners and Vattenfall alligned took a lot of time and energy. “It started with mutual distrust, explains Hans Wichink. After all, for many landowners, the project meant going from private ownership to share ownership. Whereas before they could decide for themselves what to do with the sale of power from their own wind turbine(s), this is now regulated from the collective – a desire of the province. There are also some practical changes. For example, many farmers with wind turbines used to use the crae stand as (temporary) storage for crops or other items, Arend Heida explains. As a local owner, he previously had 2 0.5 MW wind turbines and is now part of SwifterwinT. But both parties take pride in how the cooperation went and is still taking place.
Repowering – eight times more power
Windplanblauw is a repowering project in which 74 turbines have been replaced by 61 new and more powerful ones. Of these, 24 are located in the IJsselmeer. Vattenfall owns 14 of these wind turbines. The combination of nearshore and onshore in 1 project is unique in the Netherlands. The wind turbines in the water replace the turbines of Vattenfall’s Irene Vorrink wind farm, which stood right along the dike for many years, and the turbines of three regional wind associations. The amount of electricity the farm now produces is equivalent to the consumption of 1 million Dutch people. That is eight times more than in the old situation.
On land, wind turbines from the Danish wind turbine supplier Vestas were selected. They are of type EnVentus Vestas V162-5.6 MW with 213 and 209 meters tip height. The nearshore wind turbines were supplied by General Electric and are of type GE Cypress 5.5 MW with 202 meters tip height. Together they have an installed capacity of 340 MW, of which 132 MW are in the water.
The wind turbines in the water are land turbines. Contractor Ballast Nedam devised a unique solution for placing these land turbines on water, by combining the superstructure of the foundation solution -which is normally applied on land- with the substructure of a maritime solution. This creates a cofferdam construction consisting of 22 tubular piles, reinforced with baffles and filling of sand, which forms the basis for the concrete turbine foundations with an eventual diameter of 20 meters. Thus the required rigidity for onshore wind turbines was achieved, explains Mathhew May, project director of construction Vattenfall.
Ecological measures
Ecological measures were also taken in the nearshore part of Windplanblauw. Because it is a Natura 2000 area, strict environmental regulations had to be adhered to already during construction. In addition, about 200 reef balls were placed on the bottom of the lake divided into two locations. These are artificial reef structures about a meter high, in the shape of a church bell. They are made of environmentally friendly pH-neutral concrete, and provide a habitat for marine organisms. In addition, a resting area for Grebes has been kept clear along the length of 300 meters along the shore. A monitoring program for Cormorants is also taking place.
Challenges of building in the IJsselmeer
The construction of the 24 turbines on the water posed considerable challenges. “Sometimes it seemed like Murphy (Murphy’s Law) had taken up residence on the dike,” says Matthew May. This is because standard installation techniques for offshore wind farms are not possible in the shallow waters of the IJsselmeer, where the water depth averages 4.5 meters and the soil conditions could vary by meter. Moreover, the locks are not wide enough for offshore vessels. Therefore, the heavy lifting required the use of a custom installation setup consisting of stabilized floating pontoons with a land crane with 144 meters of crane boom on deck. Each pontoon was small enough to fit through the IJsselmeer locks and shallow enough not to run aground.
Bad weather also caused problems. Hoisting the heavy tower sections and turbine blades requires low winds and minimal wave action. Unfortunately, bad weather hampered the installation on the water in 2023. An unprecedented long period of strong northerly winds in the spring was followed by the stormiest July ever recorded. Last winter, bad weather caused work to have to be postponed again. The unusually abundant rainfall meant that the locks had to be closed due to high water, preventing turbine components from getting to the construction site. Source: Vattenfall / All images: BGF
