The second SeaMade offshore substation topside has been installed in the Seastar concession area in the Belgian North Sea.
The wind farm’s first substation was installed in the Mermaid concession area at the beginning of March.
Each with a weight of 1,200 tonnes, the substations transform the wind energy that is produced to 225kV, which in turn allows the electricity to be brought to shore via Elia’s Modular Offshore Grid (MOG). The export cable was installed earlier with DEME’s cable installation vessel Living Stone.
Mathias Verkest ,CEO SeaMade offshore wind farm, said: “I am thrilled to see this oversized mecano being put together, bringing us closer step by step to the start of green energy production for 485.000 households as from autumn this year. A big thank you to the SeaMade team and all parties involved for the close cooperation and joined efforts to make this happen.”
The installation of the substations was executed with heavy lift vessel Gulliver operated by DEME Offshore ’s subsidiary Scaldis. Earlier, DEME’s offshore installation vessel Innovation installed all of the foundations, including those for the two substations.
Bart de Poorter , General Manager DEME Offshore, said: “Despite the challenging weather conditions over the past weeks the SeaMade project is firmly on track. The successful installation of the two offshore substations was only made possible thanks to the close cooperation between the SeaMade team and our partners Smulders, ENGIE Fabricom and Tractebel, as well as the highly skilled experts on board of our vessels.”
The installation of the wind farm’s 58 Siemens Gamesa 8.4MW wind turbines will begin in spring. DEME will deploy its offshore installation vessel Apollo on what will be the vessel’s first turbine installation project.
Living Stone will start the installation of the inter-array cables in April, DEME said.