Van Oord installs inter-array cables at Hollandse Kust Noord

Van Oord has completed installing and burying inter-array cables at CrossWind’s Hollandse Kust Noord offshore wind farm in the Dutch North Sea.

Van Oord’s cable-laying vessel Nexus and trencher Dig-It, a remotely-operated vehicle operated from Subsea Viking, have installed a web of 69 inter-array cables measuring 140 kilometres in total.

The offshore wind farm is located 18.5 kilometres off the coast of the Netherlands, near the seaside resort of Egmond aan Zee.

Van Oord designed a 66 kV inter-array grid for the Hollandse Kust Noord offshore wind farm. Dutch manufacturer TKF (Twentsche Kabelfabriek) supplied the cables. Nexus, equipped with a large 5,000 tonnes capacity cable carousel, installed the inter-array cables.

Trencher Dig-It subsequently buried the cables to the required depth of between 1 and 1.5 metres. The Dig-It, a Tracked Remotely Operated Vehicle (TROV), can be used for burying cables both in “jetting mode” for sandy soils and in “chain cutter mode”’ for harder soils. At the Hollandse Kust Noord project, both modes were used successfully, Van Oord said.

Crosswind, a joint venture between Shell and Eneco, contracted Van Oord for the complete Balance of Plant scope for the construction of the offshore wind farm. As a Balance of Plant contractor, Van Oord’s activities encompass the design, engineering, procurement, and transport and installation of the wind turbine foundations, the inter-array cables, as well as the transport and installation of the wind turbines themselves.

Earlier this year, Van Oord completed the installation of all 70 monopile foundations at the wind farm. Currently, Van Oord is deploying two offshore installation vessels to install the wind turbine generators and is also performing the electrical termination works of the cables in the wind turbine generators.

While construction is still in full swing, the Hollandse Kust Noord offshore wind farm already produced its first megawatt hours of green electricity and delivered it to the Dutch mainland.

In the coming months, production capacity will be constantly increased. Once finished later this year, the wind farm will have a total installed capacity of 759 MW, generating at least 3.3 TWh per year. This is enough renewable electricity to meet 2.8 per cent of the Netherlands’ electricity demand.