Van Oord and DEME have kicked off the construction of the offshore wind farm Hollandse Kust Noord by installing the first monopile. Hollandse Kust Noord is located 18.5 kilometres off the west coast of the Netherlands near Egmond aan Zee.
CrossWind, a joint-venture between Shell and Eneco, contracted Van Oord in 2020. As Balance of Plant contractor, Van Oord’s activities encompass the design, engineering, procurement, construction and installation of the foundations, inter array cables and transportation and installation of the wind turbines.
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Offshore installation vessels involved
Over the next few months, a total of seventy monopiles will be installed. For the installation of the monopiles, Van Oord is teaming up with DEME who deploys its offshore installation vessel Innovation.
To avoid erosion, Van Oord has already successfully installed scour protection using its flexible fallpipe vessel Nordnes. Other Van Oord vessels that will be deployed are the offshore installation vessel MPI Resolution, cable-laying vessel Nexus and trencher Dig-It.
‘We are very pleased to have achieved this important milestone. Thanks to the committed and experienced project teams, the installation of the monopiles started about ten weeks earlier than originally planned,’ says Roeland Ris, Project Director Van Oord.
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Hollandse Kust Noord
Hollandse Kust Noord is to be commissioned in 2023. The wind farm will have an installed capacity totalling 759 MW and will generate at least 3.3 TWh per year. This is enough to supply green power to more than a million households.
