Dutch engineering and consulting company Enersea will take care of the owner’s engineering for the 370MW Norther offshore wind farm located in the Belgian part of the North Sea.
Enersea’s work scope includes reviewing the design reports and drawings of the wind turbine generator (WTG) foundations and the offshore high voltage substation (OHVS) foundation, as well as the installation and sea transport analyses of high voltage equipment on the OHVS.
In addition, Enersea advises on technical queries from the side of the contractors involved in the project and performs first article inspections of secondary steel components for the WTG foundations.
The Norther offshore wind farm, located approximately 23km from the port of Zeebrugge, will feature 44 MHI Vestas V164-8.0MW turbines optimised to be able to deliver a maximum output of 8.4MW.
The Final Investment Decision (FID) for the wind project was reached mid-December 2016, when MHI Vestas and Van Oord were awarded contracts.
Van Oord is the EPCI contractor for the foundations, the offshore substation, and the inter-array and export cables. For the transport and installation of the foundations and turbines Van Oord intends to deploy its offshore installation vessel Aeolus and cable-laying vessel Nexus.
Sif and Smulders will handle the production of foundations and transition pieces.
The wind farm is owned by Norther NV, a joint venture between Elicio and Boreas with three sponsors: Elicio NV (50%), Eneco (25%) and Mitsubishi Corporation (25%) .
The construction is expected to start in 2018, and when commissioned in 2019, Norther will be Belgium’s largest wind farm.