General – Electricity Connections
The work to connect the new offshore wind farms is now clearly visible on the Maasvlakte beach.
Grid operator TenneT is working alongside contractors to establish temporary work areas and carry out preparatory activities for the next phase of construction of the electricity connections for the IJmuiden Ver Beta, IJmuiden Ver Gamma, and Nederwiek 2 wind farms.
This marks the transition to a new project phase. NRG, the contractor responsible for this work, recently installed the underground land cables that will transport direct current from the landing point on Slufterstrand to the converter stations. Now that this work is complete, NKT is preparing to install the subsea cables.
Current work primarily consists of setting up temporary work platforms. These platforms will form the basis for the horizontal directional drilling (HDD) that will be carried out from the beach.
This drilling will enable an underground route to be constructed for the cables to travel under the beach and seabed towards the sea.
“We are building a robust energy infrastructure here, which is necessary to safely and efficiently transport sustainable electricity from the sea to shore,” explains Arjan Dams, TenneT’s project director. ‘The underground drilling is necessary because the beach here slopes very gradually. As a result, large cable-laying vessels cannot operate close to the shore. By working underground, we limit the impact on the beach, nature and how the area is used.”
