Wind Energy – Topside Installation
On the night and morning of 21 May HMC’s crane vessel Sleipnir installed the topside for the offshore transformer platform Hollandse Kust (west Beta) on the jacket.
This new milestone for offshore wind connection took place 50 kilometres off the coast of Egmond aan Zee, the Netherlands.
On a pontoon, the topside departed the port of Antwerp on 17 May. The structure was subsequently towed to Dutch waters via the Scheldt and sailed into the North Sea at Flushing. This marks the completion of the third and, for now, final 700-megawatt platform built by the Equans/Smulders contractor combination.
In total, this is the seventh and last connection for an offshore wind farm that TenneT is developing via this 700 MW standard, meanwhile, TenneT has started using the new 2 gigawatt (GW) connection standard in both the Netherlands and Germany.
With the installation complete, a hotel barge will soon be berthed next to the platform. A team of engineers and technicians will then remain on the vessel in the coming months to weld the topside to the jacket and manage the commissioning of the installation.
Until about 2032, TenneT will realise seven more new connections for offshore wind farms. These connections are much further offshore and for these TenneT uses a different technology, namely direct current and with a capacity of 2 gigawatts.
With this new standard developed by TenneT, much larger amounts of electricity can be transmitted to land with less transmission loss.
By 2032, with the connection of these wind farms, 75% of our current electricity consumption will soon come from offshore wind.
