The monopiles are the foundations of the wind turbines. Over the next few months, a total of 70 monopiles will be installed at Hollandse Kust Noord, which is located 18.5km off the west coast of the Netherlands near Egmond aan Zee.
CrossWind, a joint-venture between Shell and Eneco, contracted Van Oord in 2020. As balance of plant contractor, Van Oord's activities encompass the design, engineering, procurement, construction and installation of the foundations, inter array cables and transportation and installation of the wind turbines.
To avoid erosion, Van Oord has already successfully installed scour protection using its flexible fallpipe vessel Nordnes. Other Van Oord vessels that will be deployed are the offshore installation vessel MPI Resolution, cable-laying vessel Nexus and trencher Dig-It. For the installation of the monopiles, Van Oord is teaming up with DEME who will deploy its offshore installation vessel Innovation.
"We are very pleased to have achieved this important milestone. Thanks to the committed and experienced project teams, the installation of the monopiles started about 10 weeks earlier than originally planned," Roeland Ris, project director Van Oord, said.
Hollandse Kust Noord will have an installed capacity of 759MW, generating at least 3.3TWh per year. This equals enough renewable electricity for more than one million Dutch households. CrossWind plans to have the wind farm operational by 2023.
