ENGIE Fabricom – Iemants get to work on Hollandse Kust Noord project

ENGIE Fabricom and Iemants have started engineering work on the Hollandse Kust Noord (HKN) offshore transformer station, with construction work for the topside and the jacket scheduled to start in October.

As previously reported, TenneT TSO selected the ENGIE Fabricom – Iemants joint venture to construct the offshore substation for the Hollandse Kust Noord wind farm in the Dutch North Sea through a European tender procedure.

The joint venture is also the preferred contractor for TenneT’s Hollandse Kust (west) Alpha and the Hollandse Kust (west) Beta platforms.

The scope of work for the Hollandse Kust Noord project consists of the engineering, procurement, construction, offshore installation, connection, and testing of the offshore transformer station.

The substation consists of a 45-metre-high jacket of 1,930 T and 870 T piles to be placed in 24-metre water depth, and a topside structure consisting of 4 decks weighing approximately 4,100 T. The topside structure is 47 metres long, 35 metres wide and 25 metres high.

Iemants, a subsidiary of Smulders, is responsible for the engineering, procurement, and construction of the steel structures for both the topside and the jacket.

All works will be performed inhouse, at the Smulders’ production facilities in Arendonk, Balen, and Hoboken in Belgium. The topside will be transferred to the ENGIE Fabricom yard for final assembly. The jacket will be assembled at the yard in Vlissingen, the Netherlands.

ENGIE Fabricom is responsible for the engineering, procurement, integration, construction and testing of all LV, MV, HV, and auxiliary systems for the jacket and the topside.

The engineering, procurement, construction, integration, and onshore testing for the topside systems will take place at the ENGIE Fabricom yard in Hoboken. For the jacket, these activities will take place in Vlissingen.

The load-out of the jacket is planned for the fall of 2021. The topside is scheduled to leave the yard in Hoboken in the spring of 2022.

Hans Schipper, joint venture’s project manager for HKN: “We are confident that the expertise of TenneT in these highly standardized 700 MW offshore transformer stations, in combination with the wide experience of the Joint Venture in developing offshore transformer stations over the last decades, will result in a safe and successful project conclusion. We are looking forward to working together with TenneT and wish to develop a long-lasting relationship, in the offshore wind industry.”