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First steel cut for Hollandse Kust (west Alpha) topside

4C Offshore | James Bernthal-Hooker
By: James Bernthal-Hooker 11/06/2021 Smulders - ENGIE

Topside fabrication has commenced on the Hollandse Kust (west Alpha) transformer station. Joint Venture partners Smulders (via its subsidiary Iemants) and ENGIE Solutions announced the kick-off with grid operator TenneT today (11th June 2021). The companies stated that topside fabrication commenced last week. The nodes and plate girders that were cut are the project’s first building blocks.

The cutting took place at Smulders’ facility in Hoboken, Belgium, and steel fabrication will continue at Smulders’ facilities in Arendonk, Balen, and Hoboken.


“With the cutting of the first steel, an important project milestone has been achieved on time. We are confident that also on this project we will meet the jointly established project goals and continue the excellent cooperation with the teams of TenneT, its Suppliers of materials and the Certifying Authority”, said
Hans Schipper, JV Project Manager ENGIE Solutions – Iemants.


We are pleased with these first physical steps in the construction of the offshore transformer station Hollandse Kust (west Alpha); the second Dutch transformer station to be built by the ENGIE/Iemants combination”,
said Guus Siteur, Project Manager for the Hollandse Kust (noord) (west Alpha) platform on behalf of TenneT.


4C Offshore reported the joint venture’s contract award in December 2020, noting at the time: “This contract, for Hollandse Kust (west Alpha), is the consortium’s second Hollandse Kust win, following an award to construct and install the Hollandse Kust (north) transformer station, earlier this year. In each case, TenneT issued a call for tenders.


“The new contract includes engineering, procurement, construction, offshore installation, connection and testing the offshore transformer substation. The topside and the jacket will be built separately on land. They will be installed at sea on site using a crane ship.“


The partners will assemble the topside at Smulders’ facilities from July 2021, then transfer deck sections to ENGIE Solutions’ yard in Hoboken so that all auxiliary systems can be installed and the free issued medium & high voltage equipment can be integrated from Q4 2021. The final outfitting, commissioning and testing will take place from March 2022 until sail away in the summer of 2023, after which the topside will be installed offshore.


The companies stated that jacket fabrication will commence shortly, and the jacket will be installed offshore in Summer 2022. The Hollandse Kust (west Alpha) transformer station is scheduled to be fully offshore commissioned in Q3 2023.


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