4C Offshore Empowering Intelligence

SeaMade reaches financial close

4C Offshore | Tom Russell
By: Tom Russell 03/12/2018 Otary

SeaMade NV, developer of the
Mermaid and Seastar offshore wind farms, has reached financial close for the two Belgium offshore wind farm. This paves the way for construction activities to begin in summer 2019 with commercial operation by the end of 2020.

SeaMade is a partnership between the Otary consortium (70%), ENGIE Electrabel (15.5%) and Eneco Wind Belgium (12.5%). The Otary consortium consists of Green Offshore and Power @ Sea, dredging and marine engineering specialist DEME and green energy actors Aspiravi and Elicio.

Mathias Verkest – CEO SeaMade: “We are pleased that our project milestones are achieved in time trough tremendous efforts of many as we are working on a quite ambitious timing towards 2020. It is a token of trust to continue cooperation with very experienced partners that have a proven track-record in working together in Belgium and elsewhere. The SeaMade financing, provided by an international lending consortium consisting of the European Investment Bank, the Danish export credit agency EKF and 15 commercial banks, successfully concludes the government’s ambition of developing about 2,200 MW of offshore energy. Offshore energy is becoming more and more predominant in the Belgian energy mix providing clean energy to 50% of the household consumption in Belgium on an annual basis.”


The project is being financed by an international lending consortium consisting of the European Investment Bank, the Danish export credit agency EKF and 15 commercial banks. A total of 58 wind turbines are to be installed with a total capacity of 487MW. It is expected to provide up to 485,000 households with electricity.

Siemens Gamesa will supply 58 Siemens Gamesa SG 8.0-167 DD turbines and is responsible for servicing. This turbine model has a base capacity of 8MW with a power boost function bringing capacity to 8.4MW.

Each of the Project’s two wind farms,
Mermaid and Seastar, will have its own offshore substation, which will collect electricity produced, convert it from 33 kV to 220 kV and export it into the Offshore Grid operated by Elia System Operator NV, the Transmission System Operator.

ENGIE Fabricom, Tractebel, Smulders and Geosea will be responsible for the full EPCI of the substations, including engineering, procurement, construction, transport, installation and commissioning.

Both wind farms will be connected through two 220-245 kV XLPE 800mm² Aluminum submarine high voltage cables to the Belgian Modular Offshore Grid. The so-called export cables have a combined length of around 28km, and a cable diameter of around 247mm weighing approximately 96.4 kg per running meter. Production will be performed by Hellenic Cables in Greece and installation will be done by Tideway in 2020.

The engineering, procurement, construction and installation contract of the foundations and inter-array cables will be undertaken by Dredging International NV, subsidiary of Dredging, Environmental & Marine Engineering NV.

For more information on offshore wind farms worldwide, click here. You can also view projects worldwide using 4C Offshore's interactive map.

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