Borssele III & IV: Giant Dutch Offshore Wind Farm Fully Commissioned

Borssele III & IV, one of the largest offshore wind farms in the Dutch sector of the North Sea, has reached full commissioning, Van Oord a partner in the Blauwwind consortium behind the 731.5 MW wind farm's development, said Thursday.

Blauwwind is a consortium between Shell, Partners Group, Eneco, DGE and Van Oord.

Located 22 kilometers off the Dutch coast and the Province of Zeeland, the wind farm is capable of powering 825,000 Dutch households with electricity. 

Roeland Borsboom, Project Director for Blauwwind said: "This is a great achievement by everybody involved. In difficult circumstances, partly due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we were able to construct the wind farm at a swift pace, without noteworthy problems or incidents. The five Blauwwind consortium partners, the project organization, and the (sub)contractors collaborated incredibly well."

The construction of the 731.5 MW wind farm, with a total of 77 MW turbines was completed on-time, with official commissioning on 6 January 2021, Van Oord said.Credit: Van Oord

As the Balance of Plant contractor for the Borssele III & IV offshore wind farm, Van Oord was responsible for the design, engineering, procurement, construction, and installation of the foundations and inter-array cables together with the installation of 77 turbines of which the last was installed in November 2020. 

Cable installation vessel Nexus and trencher Dig-It completed the installation and burial of more than 170 kilometers of inter-array cables, Van Oord said.

Arnoud Kuis, Managing Director Van Oord Offshore Wind said: "This is an important milestone for the transition to renewable energy in the Netherlands. We are proud that we are building our fifth offshore wind farm in the Netherlands and by doing so making a significant contribution to the Dutch transition to a renewable energy system. The Blauwwind project team, including all the Van Oord colleagues, have done a fantastic job by showing agility."

The wind farm is connected to the Borssele Beta platform, built and operated by TenneT, which converts power from 66Kv to 220 kV and transports it to the onshore electrical substation at Borssele. The connection was completed in July 2020. The 731.5 MW wind farm will supply renewable energy accounting for up to 2.3% of total Dutch electricity demand.