Cable from the largest wind farm lands in Zeebrugge

Wednesday, September 19, 2018 — Ostend / Zeebrugge. In order to connect the Norther Offshore wind farm to the Belgian electricity grid with a 24-kilometer cable, the work on the beach of Zeebrugge start this week. After the installation of the high-voltage station at sea in the middle of August, it is now time for the next step.

It is the cable-laying vessel Nexus that will lay the 24-kilometer long cable on the seabed and then has it placed at depth by a specially equipped excavator. The part of the cable in deeper water will be buried by a ship with a burying machine.A cable layer will take over the work in the shallow water at 4 kilometres from the coastline and will bring the cable further ashore in Zeebrugge. Close to the coastline, the “Nessie II” will take over the cable. This mechanical excavator on German-made tracks is 27 meters long and 8 meters wide.Mobile cranes will lay the last 450 meters of cable on the beach. With the export cable, Norther will be directly connected to the new Stevin high voltage station in Zeebrugge. This way, the generated energy from the largest wind farm in Belgium ends up on the electricity grid, taking care of the annual electricity production of nearly 400,000 families.Norther is currently building the foundations for the 44 wind turbines, which will be operational from Q3 2019. The park will then take care of the annual electricity production of nearly 400,000 families.

About Norther :

Norther NV is an offshore wind farm company ((50% Boreas (a JV between Eneco & Diamond Generating Europe) – 50% Nethys) with an anticipated capacity of 369.6 MW that will be built in the Belgian North Sea – 22km of the coast of Zeebrugge. Norther NV is responsible for the development, construction and operations of the offshore windfarm Norther. The offshore windpark is one of the biggest in Belgium. Total investment cost of the project is estimated at 1.3 billion euro. Norther NV will reach its financial close in October 2016 and will start building beginning of 2019.