The Nobelwind offshore wind farm was developed by Nobelwind NV, a joint venture of Parkwind (41.08%), Sumitomo (39.02%) and Meewind (19.9%). Located 46km off the coast of Zeebrugge in the North Sea, Belgium, the project was developed with an estimated investment of €655m ($705.9m). It was officially inaugurated in May 2017.
With an installed capacity of 165MW, the project is one of the biggest offshore wind farms in Belgium. It has an annual output capacity of 679GHh, which is equivalent to offsetting 197,000t of CO₂ emissions a year.
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The renewable energy produced by the project will be enough to supply approximately 186,000 households.
The project achieved financial closure in October 2015. Mott MacDonald acted as the lenders’ technical adviser for the project.
Nobelwind offshore wind farm background and location details
The offshore wind farm is located at Belwind concession in the North Sea. The territorial concession for the construction and exploitation of installations for the production of wind power was granted by Ministerial Decree in Belgium in June 2007.
The project is spread over 19.8km² at water depths between 26m and 38m. The average wind speed in the location is 9.3m/s.
Nobelwind offshore wind farm make-up
The wind farm is installed with 50 V112 turbines with a rated power output of 3.3MW each. Each turbine has a height of 135m, hub height of 79m, rotor diameter of 112m and swept area of 9,852m². The turbines have 55m-long blades and weigh 12.5t each.
The nacelle of the turbines have a length of 12.8m, height of 6.8m, width of 4m and weight of approximately 125t.
The wind turbines are connected to the Belgian power grid with an export cable. An offshore high-voltage substation (OHVS) was built to convert the 33kV voltage provided by the wind turbines to 220kV.
Construction
The construction of the substation for the Nobelwind offshore wind farm began in October 2015 and was completed by the fourth quarter of 2016.
The design and engineering work for the installation and trenching of 50 array cables began in June 2015, while the offshore works started in the third quarter of 2016. The entire construction was completed in the first half of 2017.
Contractors involved with the Belgian offshore wind farm
The joint venture of MHI and Vestas was awarded a contract to supply 50 V112-3.3MW wind turbines for the Nobelwind offshore wind farm in October 2015. The contractual scope also includes providing 15 years of full-scope service.
Jan De Nul was awarded an engineering, procurement, construction and installation (EPCI) contract in September 2015, to provide 51 monopile foundations for the 50 wind turbines and the OHVS, supply and installation of scour protection, and installation of 50 wind turbine generators. The installation was performed by deploying a jack-up heavy-lift vessel named Vidar.
Bladt Industries and Semco Maritime were jointly awarded an EPCI contract to provide the OHVS in June 2015. DeepOcean was awarded the inter-array cable installation contract. The scope of work included installation and trenching of 50 array cables, design and supply of the cable protection systems, and installation and trenching of a coupling cable between the Nobelwind and Belwind I OHVS.
It also included performing surveys and pre-lay grapnel runs, as well as optional works such as cable termination, testing and support, and management.
Prysmian Group was contracted to design, manufacture and supply a 33kV coupling cable for the project in August 2015. EEW Special Pipe Constructions was contracted to manufacture the monopile foundations in October 2015.
