Van Oord responsible for design/engineering and installation of inter-array cables; installed first inter-array cable using Nexus; 12 cable strings / ~175 km 66 kV array system
Van Oord acted as the Balance of Plant contractor for the Borssele III & IV offshore wind farm (731.5 MW) located around 22 km off the Zeeland coast in the Dutch North Sea. Within its overall Balance of Plant scope, Van Oord was responsible for the design and engineering, procurement, construction, and offshore installation of the wind farm’s inter-array cable system that electrically connected the turbines within the project. During the offshore construction campaign, Van Oord executed the inter-array cable installation using its cable-laying vessel Nexus. Project updates reported that the first inter-array cable was installed at the site in January 2020, marking the start of the array cabling works offshore. By April 2020, Nexus had installed a portion of the planned cable strings, with ongoing works continuing to complete the full array network. This scope covered the practical marine execution of laying and securing the subsea inter-array cables on the seabed, including associated offshore handling and installation activities required to connect the turbine strings. The installed 66 kV array cable system represented the internal collection grid for the 77-turbine wind farm and enabled power to be gathered for export via the separate TenneT offshore grid connection infrastructure.