Wind Energy – Jacket Installation
On behalf of TenneT, the jacket for the Hollandse Kust (west Beta) transformer platform was successfully placed on the seabed off the North Holland coast during the past Pentecost weekend.
The ready-made topside will be installed next year.
Wind farm operator RWE/OranjeWind can then connect the wind farm, which will be built at sea in a few years, to this ‘socket at sea’.
Last Thursday, the jacket was sailed on a floating pontoon from the port of Vlissingen to its final destination about 53 kilometers off the coast of Egmond aan Zee.
The steel structure, 49 meters high and weighing more than 2,100 tonnes, was lifted from the floating pontoon by the lifting vessel Sleipnir (Heerema Marine Contractors) last weekend and placed on the seabed.
The jacket is firmly anchored at the four corner points using piles driven more than 50 meters into the seabed. These piles are placed in large tubes of 10 meters that are welded to the feet of the chassis. By filling the space between the piles and the pipes with cement (grout) you create a connection that ensures that the platform can withstand even the heaviest storm on the North Sea.
