Heerema’s Thialf Lowers Hollandse Kust West Alpha Topside Into Place

September 8, 2023, by Adnan Memija

The topside for TenneT’s Hollandse Kust West Alpha offshore substation has been installed at its site some 50 kilometres off the coast of Egmond aan Zee in the Netherlands, according to a social media update posted by Tim Meyerjürgens, Chief Operating Officer (COO) of TenneT.

The substation topside left Equans fabrication yard in Hoboken, Belgium at the beginning of this week.

Equans (formerly known as ENGIE) built the offshore transformer platform together with Iemans, a subsidiary of Smulders, under a a contract signed with TenneT in 2020.

The 3,600-tonne topside was completed last month while the first steel was cut back in 2021.

The topside is 47 metres long, 35 metres wide, and 25 metres high. The unit was placed on top of its jacket foundation by Heerema Marine Contractors’ crane vessel Thialf.

Heerema Fabrication Group built the jacket foundation on behalf of Smulders and Equans.

The platform will be fully commissioned in 2024 when it will be able to connect 700 MW of offshore wind capacity to the Dutch grid.

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This is the third of the three offshore substations the Belgian companies are delivering to the Dutch transmission system operator (TSO), the other two being the Hollandse Kust Noord and Hollandse Kust West Beta substations.

The Hollandse Kust Noord platform was installed in October last year, while the work on the jacket foundation and the topside for Hollandse Kust Beta started last year.