Offshore windfarm Borssele III&IV now fully operational
Offshore windfarm Borssele III&IV, located in the North Sea before the Dutch coast, is now fully operational, the Blauwwind consortium of shareholders will announce during a festive (online) ceremony on 18 February. The construction of the 731.5 MW wind farm, with a total of 77 V164-9.5 Megawatt turbines produced by Vestas, was completed on-time, with official commissioning on 6 January 2021.
“This is a great achievement of everybody involved”, says Roeland Borsboom, project director and CEO for Blauwwind. “In difficult circumstances, partly due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we were still able to construct the windfarm at a swift pace, without noteworthy problems or incidents. The five partners, the project organisation and the (sub)contractors collaborated incredibly well, while I also would like to mention the smooth cooperation with both TenneT, the owner of the offshore substation Borssele Beta, and Østed, our neighbours of the Borssele I&II project. Today we proudly celebrate the hand-over of the project to the Blauwwind operations team”.
The Blauwwind consortium, currently consisting of Partners Group, the global private markets firm (acting on behalf of its clients), (45%), Shell (20%), Diamond Generating Europe (15%), Van Oord (10%) and Eneco (10%), won the tender by the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs in December 2016. Financial Close and project sanction was achieved in June 2018, and the first monopile was installed in October 2019. The wind farm is expected to produce roughly 3.000 Gigawatt hours (Gwh) per annum, which is equivalent to the annual power use of 825,000 Dutch households. Shell Energy Europe Limited and Eneco have secured contracts to each sell 50% of the power produced. Maintenance and Operations will be done from a permanently manned Service Operations Vessel which has her home base in Oostende.
Follow the ceremony at www.blauwwind.nl/live
The official handover ceremony is today, 18 February, from 11 am to 12 pm CET. During this ceremony, the most important actors, such as the shareholders, public officials and contractors, will reflect on the project, but will also look forward to future developments concerning offshore wind at the Dutch North Sea, and the energy transition generally.
Press moment (only for journalists)
Right after the hand-over ceremony there is an opportunity for journalists to ask further questions (through another another link). Please indicate if you want to participate at: Edwin.vandehaar@eneco.com A link will then be send to you.
About the partners in the Blauwwind consortium:
Partners GroupPartners Group is a leading global private markets investment manager. Since 1996, the firm has invested over USD 145 billion in private equity, private real estate, private debt and private infrastructure on behalf of its clients globally. Partners Group is a committed, responsible investor and aims to create broad stakeholder impact through its active ownership and development of growing businesses, attractive real estate and essential infrastructure. With over USD 109 billion in assets under management as of 31 December 2020, Partners Group serves a broad range of institutional investors, sovereign wealth funds, family offices and private individuals globally. The firm employs more than 1,500 diverse professionals across 20 offices worldwide and has regional headquarters in Baar-Zug, Switzerland; Denver, USA; and Singapore. It has been listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange since 2006 (symbol: PGHN). For more information, please visit www.partnersgroup.com or follow us on LinkedIn or Twitter.
Diamond Generating Europe
Diamond Generating Europe is an international company with main focus on projects in the power generation and power downstream sectors in the EMEA region. The company was established in 2012 and we have been actively investing in renewable energy business operating from 3 office locations in London, Amsterdam and Dubai. Our projects include offshore wind farms in Belgium, the Netherlands, UK, onshore wind farms in France, solar assets in Portugal, France, Spain and Jordan and a multi-fuel-fired power plant in Jordan. www.dg-europe.com
Van Oord
Van Oord is a Dutch family-owned company with 150 years of experience as an international marine contractor. The focus is on dredging, land infrastructure in the Netherlands, offshore wind and oil & gas infrastructure. Its head office is in Rotterdam. Van Oord employs 5,000 staff, who worked in 2019 on 200 projects in 44 countries. The fleet consists of about 70 vessels and a large amount of special-purpose and auxiliary equipment. Marine ingenuity is characteristic of Van Oord. By using innovative, smart and sustainable solutions, it wishes to contribute to a better world for future generations.
Eneco
Eneco consists of a group of companies active internationally in the field of renewable energy and innovation. Together with our customers, partners and almost 2,800 employees, we work on our mission: sustainable energy for all. We invest in wind farms, biomass plants, heat and solar parks to increase the supply of renewable energy. And we develop innovative products and services so that our customers can control how to generate, store, use or share energy. www.eneco.com
Shell
Please see www.shell.com/newenergies