Van Oord

Van Oord acted as CrossWind’s Balance of Plant (BoP) contractor for the Hollandse Kust Noord (HKN) offshore wind farm and was responsible for key parts of the wind farm’s electrical collection system. Within its BoP scope, Van Oord designed the 66 kV inter-array grid and executed the offshore installation works to connect the wind turbines via the inter-array cable network. During offshore construction, Van Oord installed and buried the project’s inter-array cable system using its cable-laying vessel Nexus and the trencher Dig-It, a tracked remotely operated vehicle. The installed network comprised 69 inter-array cables with a total installed length of 140 km, and burial was carried out to the required depth of approximately 1.0 to 1.5 metres, using jetting and chain-cutter modes depending on seabed conditions. In addition to lay and burial activities, Van Oord also carried out electrical termination works of the cables in the wind turbine generators as part of the overall completion of the array system. The cables themselves were supplied by Dutch manufacturer TKF, while Van Oord managed the engineering and offshore installation execution to complete the inter-array connection infrastructure for the 759 MW wind farm.