Hollandse Kust (west) Alpha Offshore Substation Ready for Wind Turbines Connection

January 11, 2024, by Adnan Memija

The grid connection for Hollandse Kust (west) Alpha is ready for commissioning after receiving the grid readiness certificate three months ahead of schedule.

Hollandse Kust West Alpha substation TenneT

Now that Hollandse Kust (west) Alpha has received the certificate, the wind farm operator Ecowende, a joint venture of Shell and Eneco, can connect the turbines for its 760 MW Hollandse Kust (west) project, which will be located about 50 kilometres off the coast of Egmond aan Zee, to grid operator TenneT’s ‘socket at sea’ as soon as they are built.

At the end of last year, the joint venture awarded Van Oord a contract for the construction of the offshore wind farm.

Whereas completion was scheduled for the first quarter of 2024, TenneT received the grid readiness certificate from DNV before the holidays in 2023. This makes the grid connection of the substation to the national electricity grid officially ready for use after a series of extensive tests, said TenneT.

Via the cable connection coming ashore at Heemskerk/Wijk aan Zee, power has been put on this new part of the grid from the high-voltage substation along the A9 near Beverwijk, according to TenneT.

“With this, we finished three months ahead of schedule. A fine achievement that the Equans/Smulders contractor combination can also be proud of. Both the teams at sea and on land have done a great job in recent months,” said Anne-Marie Taris, TenneT interface and system integration manager.

In September 2023, the 3,600-tonne topside of the offshore substation was placed on the jacket. Almost two years earlier, the first steel cut took place in Antwerp, Belgium, for the second transformer platform constructed by a joint venture between Iemants, a subsidiary of Smulders, and Equans (formerly known as ENGIE) for TenneT.

Following the installation of the topside, a hotel ship was placed next to the platform so that the Equans/Smulders team could carry out the welding work and further installation.

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