On Tuesday 15th September 2015, Jan De Nul Group and the offshore wind project Nobelwind signed the first offshore wind contract for Jan De Nul’s recently acquired offshore jack-up heavy lift vessel Vidar.
It concerns the engineering, procurement, construction and installation of 51 monopile foundations for 50 wind turbines and for the Offshore High Voltage Substation (OHVS), the supply and installation of scour protection and the installation of 50 wind turbine generators. The wind power plant will be constructed next to the Belwind wind power plant, around the Bligh Bank sand bank in the Belgian North Sea and has selected Ostend (Belgium) as Marshalling Harbour.
The new Belgian offshore wind power plant Nobelwind will be installed 46 km off the coast at Zeebrugge. It will consist of 50 Vestas wind turbines of 3.3 MW each, 165 MW in total. The power plant will be connected to the Belgian power grid through an export cable previously installed by Jan De Nul in 2013 and will provide green power to 197,000 families.
“Jan De Nul Group will execute the design, fabrication and installation of the 50 wind energy generators, inclusive foundation for the OHVS,” says Peter De Pooter, Manager Offshore Wind at Jan De Nul Group. “The steel foundations will be fabricated in Germany and Vietnam under strict quality control by our specialist inspectors. The newly acquired Vidar will install the 51 foundations working from the marshalling harbour in Ostend and the fall pipe vessel Simon Stevin will place scour protection on the sea bed around the piles. Finally the Vidar will transport the turbines and blades from Denmark to install them up to 100 m high onto the foundations.” The works will start in April 2016 and end in the course of 2017.
Image: Jan De Nul