Wednesday, May 2, 2018 — The activities of the Belgian offshore wind sector are in full swing. After the construction of the first farms in the North Sea, it is now Norther’s turn. As from this month, the scour protection works will start 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.”
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 the Van Oord company that has been designed for the offshore installations. That is also with this vessel that the foundations will be laid.
The vessels Flintstone and Rollingstone are equipped with a downpipe system and an underwater robot to carefully 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.
This project includes the placing of two protective layers against the erosion in the places where the foundations of the wind farm will be located as from July. This operation will ensure the preparation of the seabed before launching the construction of the foundations. This is scheduled as from July 2018.
“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.”
Floren Verweij, project manager with Van Oord
About Norther :
Norther NV is an offshore wind farm company (50% Boreas (a JV between Eneco & Diamond Generating Europe) – 50% Nethys) with an anticipated capacity of 369.6 MW that will be built in the Belgian North Sea – 22km of the coast of Zeebrugge. Norther NV is responsible for the development, construction and operations of the offshore windfarm Norther. The offshore windpark is one of the biggest in Belgium. Total investment cost of the project is estimated at 1.3 billion euro. Norther NV will reach its financial close in October 2016 and will start building beginning of 2019.
Press Contact :
Mark Van Hamme
Communication Manager
mark.vanhamme@norther.be
NORTHER NV | Industriepark West 73 | 9100 Sint-Niklaas | Belgium