Heerema Fabrication Group will construct the Hollandse Kust (noord) offshore transformer substation jacket. The contract for this was signed with Iemants (part of Smulders). The jacket will be 44 metres high and consists of 1600 tonnes of steel.

Construction will occur at the Heerema Fabrication Group (HFG) Vlissingen yard, with fabrication scheduled to begin in January 2021 and completion planned for September 2021.

TenneT, as the offshore grid operator in the Dutch part of the North Sea, will be responsible for the design, fabrication, installation, and operation of the grid connections that will transport the generated electricity to shore. Following a European tender procedure, TenneT selected the joint venture ENGIE Fabricom – Iemants to construct the offshore transformer station for the Hollandse Kust (noord) wind farm zone.

‘We are proud to be collaborating with Smulders on realising the Hollandse Kust (noord) project, as well as directly contributing to the Dutch energy transition,’ says Richard Spronk, HFG’s Yard Director. This project is not the first within the wind industry for HFG; in recent months, the company has been busy with the Greater Changhua pre-piling template for Heerema Marine Contractors.

The offshore platform Hollandse Kust (noord) will be located in the North Sea along the Dutch coast and will be operational by 2023. In 2030, forty per cent of the electricity demand of the Netherlands will be supplied by the electricity of offshore wind farms. TenneT realises the grid connections for these wind farms.

Tennet

This 700-MW platform will be the fifth large-scale grid connection for offshore wind energy in the Netherlands, built and operated by TenneT. The first high-voltage connections for the wind farms near Borssele are now operational, and will be followed by the connections for Hollandse Kust (zuid) in 2022. TenneT will realise approximately 9.6-GW of high-voltage connections in the Dutch North Sea by 2030.