Construction of the first offshore wind farm on the high seas

The first ship with foun­da­tions for the new Hol­landse Kust Zuid off­shore wind farm set off yes­ter­day. Over the next two years, the world’s largest and the first off­shore wind farm to be built with­out sub­si­dies will be built off the Dutch coast. The fos­sil-free elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­at­ed at the wind farm will ben­e­fit house­holds, busi­ness­es and indus­tri­al part­ners alike.

“With the con­struc­tion of the world’s first off­shore wind farm built with­out sub­si­dies, we are open­ing a new chap­ter and show­ing that this mar­ket is increas­ing­ly devel­op­ing. I am very proud and pleased that togeth­er with our indus­try part­ners we are tak­ing a big step towards our goal — life with­out fos­sil fuels.”

— Mar­ti­jn Hagens, CEO Vat­ten­fall Netherlands

The com­pa­ny wants to enable a fos­sil-free life with­in a gen­er­a­tion. Wind pow­er plays an impor­tant role in this. It cur­rent­ly oper­ates more than 1,200 wind tur­bines, and eight wind farms are under con­struc­tion, both onshore and offshore.

Con­struc­tion work for Hol­landse Kust Zuid will begin with the instal­la­tion of the monopile foun­da­tions. Each of these foun­da­tions is spe­cial­ly designed for the par­tic­u­lar site. The heav­i­est and largest monopile weighs 955 tons and is 75 meters high, while the light­est and short­est still weighs 735 tons and is 62 meters high. The monopiles are installed in water depths rang­ing from 17 to 28 meters.

The instal­la­tion ves­sel trans­ports the foun­da­tions to their off­shore loca­tion and posi­tions itself at the exact spot. The ship’s crane then lifts the monopile into the water and low­ers it until it reach­es the seabed at a depth of 17 to 28 meters. It is then dri­ven to the desired depth with a hydraulic hammer.

“Over the next few months, we will install dozens of foun­da­tions,” says project man­ag­er Ian Brem­n­er. “There will be a break in the win­ter, as the weath­er is too bad and the sea too rough to work safe­ly. In spring 2022, con­struc­tion will resume and we will install the remain­ing foun­da­tions, fol­lowed by inter­con­nect­ing cables and the wind tur­bines. Accord­ing to cur­rent plans, the first tur­bines will be com­mis­sioned in spring 2022, and all tur­bines should be con­nect­ed to the grid by sum­mer 2023.”

Vat­ten­fall is build­ing Hol­landse Kust Zuid togeth­er with its part­ner BASF. The wind farm will be locat­ed about 18 kilo­me­ters off the coasts of The Hague and Zand­voort, with the fur­thest wind tur­bines locat­ed 36 kilo­me­ters off­shore. The 140 wind tur­bines will have a com­bined installed capac­i­ty of 1.5 gigawatts, mak­ing Hol­landse Kust Zuid the largest off­shore wind farm in the world.

The com­pa­ny will pro­vide a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of the fos­sil-free elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­at­ed by the wind farm to Dutch house­holds and small busi­ness­es. BASF will use its share of the pro­duc­tion to intro­duce inno­v­a­tive, low-emis­sion tech­nolo­gies at sev­er­al of its pro­duc­tion sites in Europe.