Wind Energy – HKN
The Hollandse Kust Noord wind park, located 18.5 kilometres off the coast of Egmond aan Zee, became operational on December 20.
The wind farm was built by CrossWind, a joint venture between Shell and Eneco. It will add 759 MW of renewable energy to the Dutch electricity grid after final commissioning.
The completion of Hollandse Kust Noord will achieve a target in the Netherlands of more than 4.5 GW of offshore wind by the end of 2023.
With Hollandse Kust Noord, CrossWind has built a subsidy-free wind park that is expected to produce at least 3.3 TWh of electricity. This corresponds to 2.8 percent of electricity demand in the Netherlands. Hollandse Kust Noord, together with other offshore wind farms including Borssele and Hollandse Kust Zuid, currently supply 15.8 percent of the Netherlands’ electricity needs, a goal that was agreed more than 10 years ago in the Dutch Energy Agreement in its Roadmap 2023.
Tjalling de Bruin, director of CrossWind: “Our philosophy is: ‘We deliver, we innovate, we share,’ and that’s what we did. I am proud of the team and all the partners with whom we have safely developed this wind park in record time. We look forward to realising the innovations within the park that will help future wind parks always deliver electricity, even when the wind is not blowing. And we look forward to sharing this knowledge to accelerate the energy transition.”
Rob Jetten, outgoing Minister for Climate and Energy: “The completion of the Hollandse Kust Noord wind farm marks a highlight in the Dutch and European wind industry. With 10 years of offshore wind, we have made great strides in the Netherlands with nature-focused and technical innovations, costs have gone down, and we have started to work more and more efficiently. We can be proud of that.”
