Royal Boskalis Westminster N.V.

Royal Boskalis Westminster N.V. supported TenneT’s Borssele Alpha grid connection (serving Borssele I & II) by carrying out pre-installation seabed works along the export cable route to enable subsequent cable lay and burial operations. The scope included pre-sweeping and dredging of shallow sections of the route, with the aim of preparing the seabed and access corridor so that the export cables could be installed and buried to the required depth while reducing future maintenance needs over the asset’s operating life. The export cable route was planned to run via the Western Scheldt estuary and make landfall near the existing high-voltage substation at Borssele in the Netherlands. Boskalis’ dredging and pre-sweep works were described as enabling the installation contractor to simultaneously lay and bury the cables, reflecting an integrated approach to seabed preparation and installation efficiency. This seabed preparation package formed part of TenneT’s wider export cabling contract for the Borssele Alpha connection, which comprised two export cables of approximately 61 km each and was scheduled to be executed in the 2018–2019 period. The works supported the offshore grid connection for the 700 MW-class HVAC offshore substation platform (Borssele Alpha) that connects Ørsted’s Borssele 1 & 2 wind farm to the Dutch onshore transmission system.