First turbine installed at Hollandse Kust Noord
Pamela Largue
Posted on: 17 April 2023
Eneco has announced the first of 69 wind turbines has been installed at the Hollandse Kust Noord offshore wind park at the North Sea.
Dutch energy company Eneco has announced the first of 69 wind turbines has been installed at the Hollandse Kust Noord offshore wind park at the North Sea.
The wind park, developed by CrossWind, a joint venture of Shell and Eneco, is expected to deliver power to the Dutch grid by the end of 2023.
To complete the installation, turbine supplier Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy and maritime company Van Oord transported the turbine using the offshore installation vessel Scylla.
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Scylla set sail with the first wind turbine from the port of Eemshaven in the province of Groningen, in the north of the Netherlands. The vessel sailed to the offshore Hollandse Kust Noord site and installed the turbine on its foundation.
Stefan Hartman, wind turbine generator (WTG) package manager at CrossWind, explains: “First the tower is installed on the monopile, then the nacelle on top of the tower. Then come the blades, which are usually the most critical lift with respect to weather conditions. Blade installation will commence if there is a sufficiently long-time window of windspeeds below 12 m/s. For comparison, 12 m/s is a windspeed at which it becomes hard to hold an umbrella.”
The Siemens Gamesa 11.0-200 DD wind turbines have a rotor diameter of 200 meters and can generate up to 11MW. Once all turbines are installed and commissioned, the wind park will have a capacity of 759MW.
According to Eneco, turbine installation takes place around the clock, only pausing in the event of adverse weather conditions. Weather permitting, the team onboard the Scylla can install one wind turbine in 24 hours.
The Hollandse Kust Noord wind park is a subsidy-free offshore wind project located 18.5 kilometres off the coast of the Netherlands near the coastal town Egmond aan Zee.
