PRESS RELEASE – Blue Offshore has moved 8,000 tonnes of high voltage cable to Rotterdam. The cables will form the connection of Tennet’s Hollandse Kust Zuid Alpha Platform to the onshore grid.

Blue Offshore was awarded the contract by Van Oord, which is one of the companies involved in developing the offshore wind farm.

For this transport, Blue Offshore has mobilized the world’s first certified double basket carrousel barge, with each carrousel carrying approximately 4,000 tonnes of cable. The transport took place from Hellenic Cables in Greece to the port of Rotterdam in The Netherlands.

Blue Offshore chartered122-metre long barge CC Atlantique to complete the transport, which was towed to its destination by a tug. Besides two large carousels and the dedicated control systems, Blue Offshore provided all deck engineering, the technical crew and the complete mobilisation service.

In the upcoming phase of the project the cables will be loaded onto Van Oord’s cable lay vessel Nexus for installation offshore. A spare cable will be delivered to Tennet in Eemshaven.

The Hollandse Kust (zuid) Alpha grid connection must be ready in 2021. Beta, for which Blue Offshore will also handle the cable transport, is scheduled for completion in 2022. The HKZ wind parks combined will supply 1500 MW of renewable energy, sufficient to supply up to 3 million households with power.