Van Oord has awarded the Dutch corrosion prevention specialist MME Group with a contract to provide cathodic protection for 44 monopiles and the offshore substation to be installed at the 370MW Norther offshore wind farm in the Belgian North Sea.
MME Group will engineer, supply and commission internal and external Impressed Current Cathodic Protection (ICCP) systems for the monopiles and the substation.
Pieter Moerland, General Manager of MME Group’s Cathodic Protection division, said: “After successful delivery and operation of our ICCP systems for the largest German and Dutch OWFs (Bard Offshore 1 & Gemini) we are now honoured to contribute to “A Longer Life” for Belgium’s largest OWF. With more than 10 European OWFs protected by our systems, this deal is a clear demonstration of our dedication to customer oriented, high-quality solutions paying off.”
The Norther wind farm is located within the Exclusive Economic Zone of Belgium, approximately 23 kilometres from the Belgian port of Zeebrugge. The wind farm will comprise 44 MHI Vestas 8MW turbines optimised to deliver a maximum output of 8.4MW.
Van Oord is the main contractor for engineering, procurement, supply and installation of the foundations, the offshore substation, and the inter-array and export cables.
The project is owned by Norther N.V. a joint venture between Elicio and Boreas with three sponsors: Elicio N.V. (50%), Eneco (25%) and Mitsubishi Corporation (25%) .
The construction is expected to start in 2018. When commissioned in 2019, Norther will be Belgium’s largest wind farm.