Engie Solutions and Smulders have started fabrication of the topside for TenneT’s platform for the 1500MW Hollandse Kust Noord offshore wind farm off the coast of the Netherlands.
A steel cutting ceremony took place at Smulders’ subsidiary Iemants’ facility in Arendonk yesterday.
The pieces that were cut – nodes and PRSs – are the first building blocks for the topside.
Steel fabrication will continue at the Smulders’ facilities in Arendonk and Balen.
Assembly of the topside will start in October after which it will be transferred to the Engie Solutions yard in Hoboken for final assembly in February 2021.
Outfitting, commissioning and testing will take place from June next year until May 2022.
The topside will be installed offshore mid-2022.
The jacket fabrication will start in November. Offshore installation will take place in October 2021.
Smulders managing director of Raf Iemants said: “We are pleased that we were able to officially start the topside fabrication together with TenneT and our JV partner Engie Solutions.
“The project is being executed as per the original planning, respecting all Covid-19 measures.
“This could only be achieved thanks to the flexibility and good cooperation of the teams from TenneT, the equipment suppliers, Bureau Veritas as certifying authority and the joint venture Engie Solutions and Iemants.”
TenneT project lead HKN/HKWa platform Guus Siteur said: “TenneT is proud to be part of these first physical steps into the fabrication of the Hollandse Kust Noord offshore transformer station, the first Dutch transformer station to be built by the Engie Solutions-Iemants joint venture.
“The first six months into this contract can be summarised as constructive and cooperative, providing confidence in achieving a successful project together.
“It’s also good to see the effort which is being put by the joint venture to quantify and minimise environmental impact.”
TenneT awarded the contract in March to the joint venture of Engie Solutions ad Iemants for the engineering, procurement, construction, offshore installation, connection and testing of the offshore transformer station for the Hollandse Kust Noord wind farm zone.
The joint venture is also the preferred contractor for TenneT’s next offshore projects, the Hollandse Kust West Alpha, for which the contract is expected to be signed in the next coming weeks, and the Hollandse Kust West Beta platform.