offcials

Nobelwind has awarded an engineering, procurement, construction and installation (EPCI) contract to Luxembourg-based Jan De Nul Group for the 165MW Belwind 2 offshore wind farm in Belgium.

Under the terms of the contract, the civil engineering firm will also be responsible for installing the turbines at the facility, which is located 46km off the coast of Belgian village, Zeebrugge.

Jan De Nul will use its recently acquired offshore jack-up heavy lift vessel Vidar for installation activities on 51 monopile foundations for the 50 wind turbines, as well as the offshore, high-voltage substation.

Jan De Nul Group manager offshore wind Peter De Pooter said: "Jan De Nul Group will execute the design, fabrication and installation of the 50 wind energy generators, inclusive foundation for the OHVS."

Supply and installation of scour protection and wind turbine generators will also be handled by the firm.

Jan De Nul is expected to initiate construction works for the project from April 2016, and complete it by 2017.

"The newly acquired Vidar will install the 51 foundations…and the fall pipe vessel Simon Stevin will place scour protection on the sea bed around the piles."

Intended to be set-up next to the Belwind 1 wind power plant, around the Bligh Bank sand bank in the Belgian North Sea, the offshore facility will feature wind turbines manufactured by Danish firm Vestas.

Each turbine will have a 3.3MW power generation capacity and, once operational, the facility is expected to meet the power requirement of around 197,000 homes.

Power output from the plant will be transmitted to the Belgian power grid via an export cable installed in 2013 by Jan De Nul.

"The steel foundations will be fabricated in Germany and Vietnam under strict quality control by our specialist inspectors," Pooter added.

"The newly acquired Vidar will install the 51 foundations working from the marshalling harbor in Ostend and the fall pipe vessel Simon Stevin will place scour protection on the sea bed around the piles.

"Finally the Vidar will transport the turbines and blades from Denmark to install them up to 100m-high onto the foundations."

The Phase 1 of the Belwind project, which is equipped with 55 Vestas V90 wind turbines, entered service in December 2010 and also has a capacity of 165MW.

Image: Jan De Nul Group and Nobelwind sign EPCI contract for the wind power plant in the Belgian North Sea. Photo: courtesy of Jan De Nul Group.