Norther NV and Van Oord have loaded out the offshore substation topside destined for the 370MW Norther offshore wind farm.
The topside was built at Engie Fabricom’s yard in Hoboken and is now ready to depart for the wind farm located in the Belgian North Sea, where it will be installed on a monopile foundation.
Van Oord is the EPCI (Engineering, Procurement, Construction and Installation) contractor for the offshore substation, as well as the wind farm’s foundations and inter-array and export cables, with the company’s vessel Aeolus being the main installation vessel.
The offshore works began in May with the installation of scour protection at the site some 23km from the port of Zeebrugge.
Norther will comprise 44 MHI Vestas V164-8.0 MW turbines optimized to deliver a maximum output of 8.4MW.
Once fully operational in 2019, the project will become Belgium’s largest offshore wind farm.