Activities on the Norther offshore wind farm have started this month with scour protection works in the North Sea.
The bottom of the turbine location will be strengthened by placing large stones around the supporting structures.
“This is one of the first visible activities of the construction of the Norther offshore wind farm. We are delighted to launch the construction of the Norther project. This will be the biggest wind farm of the Belgian coast. We are also very proud to actively contribute to the Belgian climate objectives for 2020,” said Dennis Sanou , director of the Norther project
The main contractor Van Oord outsourced to Tideway, a subsidiary of the Belgian company DEME, the installation of the protection materials against raveling on the sites where the foundation of the wind farm will be laid as from July.
After the completion of these first works, the structures of the foundations will arrive by sea from Vlissingen, on a jack-up vessel from Van Oord.
The vessels Flintstone and Rollingstone are equipped with a downpipe system and an underwater robot to place the stones on the bottom. The Rollingstone will place the blocks of stone (stones of nearly 120 kg each) through a separated large diameter pipe. Around 80,000 tons of filter material and 45,000 tons of stones will be installed in this way.
“After a long period of preparations carried out in close cooperation with the client, our project team is impatient to launch the offshore operations. Together, we will realize the biggest wind farm project in Belgium,” said Floren Verweij , project manager at Van Oord.