Construction has started of the topside for the offshore transformer station to be deployed at the Hollandse Kust (west Alpha) wind farm zone offshore the Netherlands.
The joint venture between ENGIE Solutions and Iemants (a subsidiary of Smulders) and the offshore platform operator TenneT held the first steel cutting ceremony last week, at the Smulders facility in Hoboken, Belgium.
The pieces that were cut (nodes and plate girders) are the first building blocks for the topside. Steel fabrication will now continue at the Smulders’ facilities in Arendonk, Balen and Hoboken.
We are pleased with these first physical steps in the construction of the offshore transformer station Hollandse Kust (west Alpha); the second Dutch transformer station to be built by the ENGIE/Iemants combination”, said Guus Siteur, project manager Platform for the Hollandse Kust (noord) (west Alpha) platform on behalf of TenneT.
The joint venture started the design works for the topside, jacket, and piles after the contract award last year.
Substation Illustration - Credit: Tennet
Assembly of the topside will start at the Smulders’ facilities in July 2021 after which the topside deck sections will be transferred to the ENGIE Solutions yard in Hoboken for installation of all the auxiliary systems and the integration of the free issued medium & high voltage equipment starting in the fourth quarter of 2021.
The final outfitting, commissioning and testing will take place from March 2022 until sail away in the summer of 2023, after which the topside will be installed offshore.
The jacket fabrication will start shortly, Smulders said Friday.
According to the design, the jacket will be 49 meters high and consist of 1,930 tons of steel. This steel structure will be firmly anchored in the seabed with piles at a depth of 28 meters. On top of this, the topside will have three (inner) floors and an outer deck. This topside will weigh approximately 4,300 tons and is 47 meters long, 35 meters wide, and 25 meters high (excluding antenna tower and upper deck crane).
Offshore installation of the jacket will take place in the summer of 2022. The transformer substation for Hollandse Kust (west Alpha) is scheduled to be fully offshore commissioned in the third quarter of 2023.
Earlier in 2020, the joint venture was awarded the contract for the Hollandse Kust (noord) substation, of which the assembly is currently ongoing on the ENGIE Solutions’ yard in Hoboken, Belgium. Both contracts include the engineering, procurement, construction, offshore installation, connection and testing of the offshore transformer substation and are the result of a European call for tenders issued by TenneT in 2019.
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