Fugro Netherlands Marine BV has won a contract to develop an Integrated Ground Model and a Geotechnical Interpretative Report for the 4 GW IJmuiden Ver wind farm zone in the Dutch North Sea.
The IGM and the report should be of sufficient accuracy to allow (preliminary) foundation design, the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO), the issuer of the tender, said.
The deliverables of this assignment will be made available to the participants in the concession tenders for the IJmuiden Ver offshore wind farm zone at the latest in the fourth quarter of 2022.
The IGM will be made based on the results of the geophysical work that is currently ongoing at the wind farm zone.
The model will then be used as input for the geotechnical campaign which will validate the geological model resulting from the geophysical investigation and to confirm the soil engineering properties required by developers to progress with their geotechnical foundation designs and other general design and installation requirements for the wind farm, as well as those relating to cable installation.
Located some 62 kilometres off the west coast of the Netherlands, the 400 km2 Ijmuiden Ver zone is divided into four sites – IJmuiden Ver I,II, III, and IV.
The Dutch government will issue two tenders for the permits to develop the sites, in 2023 for IJmuiden Ver I and II, and in 2025 for IJmuiden Ver III and IV.
IJmuiden Ver is one of three sites identified by the Dutch Offshore Wind Energy Roadmap 2030, which have a combined capacity of 6.1 GW and are expected to help the Netherlands reach the target of 11.5 GW of offshore wind capacity by 2030. The wind farms are expected to be commissioned between 2024 and 2030.