Velsen beach in the Netherlands has been reopened two weeks early after TenneT recently concluded onshore work connecting the 700MW Hollandse Kust (west Beta) offshore wind farm to the onshore grid.
In total, the task took 11 months and now both sea cables have landed at a depth of eight metres near Velsen, the job on the beach is almost over for TenneT and contractor NBOS.
“Anyone who now walks onto the beach via the Kitesurf path (near the bunker on the Reijndersweg Velsen-Noord/Wijk aan Zee) will no longer see anything that reminds them of the major job that has been carried out on the beach in recent months,” said TenneT.
The company added: “First of all, a temporary ‘sand castle’ was built for the two drillings under the dunes.
“Then the two sea cables, which will soon bring the electricity from the wind farm to land, were retracted into the drilling holes under the dunes.
Recently, both lines were laid at a depth of eight metres in the beach by a burial machine. The rest of the wires are currently being buried at sea.
This will be “far out of sight of beachgoers, up to the platform that we are having built 53km off the coast of Egmond aan Zee’, said TenneT’s Offshore NL project director Jaap Nijland.
On the other side of the dunes, work on the sea cables will continue for a while, said the company.
A so-called socket pit is currently being dug in the A Sea of Steel Sculpture Park, in which the sea lines are connected to the land wires with large crown stones. This pit is then covered again with sand.