The Netherlands will receive a new offshore wind project from CrossWind, a company formed by Shell and Eneco. The project will have the capacity to generate up to 759 MW of energy.

Will be installed on the coast of the Netherlands a offshore wind energy megaproject with the capacity to generate energy for one million homes. The first wind turbines They have already begun to be installed in the project and one of them has blades larger than the wings of an Airbus A380. To give you an idea, this model is 238 feet long, equivalent to 70 meters.

Offshore wind power plant will have a capacity of 759 MW

The Hollandse Kust Noord park, as it is called, is being built by CrossWind, a joint venture formed between Eneco and Shell. The venture is located 18,5 km off the coast of the Netherlands and should start operating at the end of this year.

The offshore wind energy project will have a total installed capacity of 759 MW, which will allow the generation of at least 3,3 TWh of energy annually, which would be enough to supply 2,8% of the country's energy demands.

In total, the offshore wind farm will feature 69 wind turbines from Siemens Gamesa, one of which is an 11.0-200D with 97-meter blades, 17 more than the wings of the Airbus A380, and a production capacity of up to 11 MW.

The wind turbines are supported on monopiles and the installation process is being carried out 24 hours a day, seven days a week, according to CrossWind in a press release. Each wind turbine takes a whole day to install.

The wind turbine is installed in parts, and the blades can only be installed when there is a long window of time, in which the wind has a force of less than 12 m/s, a speed that makes it difficult to hold an umbrella, to means of comparison.

Offshore wind power plant will also test other technologies

In February of this year, CrossWind signed a contract with Elogen, a company of the Gaztransport & Technigaz (GTT) group, to design and build a proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolyser with a power of 2,5 MW.

The electrolyser will convert renewable energy from the on-site wind turbines into green hydrogen, giving the project greater flexibility to adapt to variations in offshore wind power generation, according to the responsible company.

According to Cross WindHKN Project Director and CEO, Tjalling de Bruin, the company is looking forward to this partnership with Elogen to innovate offshore wind energy in the North Sea park.

With the agreement in place and the electrolyser installed with the latest technologies, it will be possible to demonstrate the acceleration in the energy transition by 2025. The installation of technologies on site began in October 2022 and was completed at the beginning of this month.

Technological solutions to ensure continuous energy supply

The TP-free monopiles, which were produced at Sif's Maasvlakte facility in Rotterdam, will support SG 11.0-200 DD 11 MW wind turbines from Siemens Games scheduled to be fully commissioned later this year. The PEM electrolyser is one of the 5 technological solutions to guarantee the continuous energy supply that CrossWind needs for the offshore wind farm.

The 5 solutions include a floating photovoltaic farm, wind turbines that are optimally tuned to the grid to mitigate the negative “wake up” effects that wind turbines have on each other, short-term battery storage, green hydrogen made by electrolysis as an additional storage technique and the joining of these individual measures to generate a continuous supply of energy, regardless of the wind.