Hollandse Kust Noord Offshore Wind Farm Goes Into Operation

December 20, 2023, by Adrijana Buljan

The Hollandse Kust Noord offshore wind farm, built by CrossWind, a joint venture between Shell and Eneco, went into operation on 20 December.

After final commissioning, the offshore wind farm will add 759 MW of generation capacity to the Dutch electricity grid and achieve the 4.5 GW offshore wind target the Netherlands set for 2023, which will even be exceeded once Hollandse Kust Noord is at full throttle by the end of this month.

The country will have a total of around 4.7 GW of offshore wind capacity at the end of this year, which is estimated to meet approximately 15.8 per cent of the total current electricity demand in the Netherlands. Hollandse Kust Noord is expected to produce at least 3.3 TWh of electricity, which corresponds to 2.8 per cent of the electricity demand.

The Dutch government announced the target would be reached ahead of schedule earlier this year and has been celebrating the achievement since then, including at this year’s Offshore Energy Exhibition & Conference (OEEC 2023) in Amsterdam.

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Hollandse Kust Noord is located 18.5 kilometres off the coast of Egmond aan Zee and has 69 Siemens Gamesa SG 11.0-200 DD wind turbines, the last of which was installed on 19 October.

The 759 MW offshore wind farm was built and will be operated without subsidies.

“Our philosophy is: ‘We deliver, we innovate, we share,’ and that’s what we did. I am proud of the team and all the partners with whom we have safely developed this wind park in record time,” Tjalling de Bruin, director of CrossWind, said.

“We look forward to realising the innovations within the park that will help future wind parks always deliver electricity, even when the wind is not blowing. And we look forward to sharing this knowledge to accelerate the energy transition.”

CrossWind, which describes the project as ”one of the Netherlands’ most innovative offshore wind parks”, plans to integrate floating offshore solar panels and a hydrogen plant.

Shell and Eneco are also partners on the operational Borssele III & IV offshore wind farm and have secured development rights for a new offshore wind project to be built at Hollandse Kust West Site VI.