The onshore substation for the 1.5 GW Hollandse Kust Zuid (HKZ) offshore wind farm in the Netherlands has been fully built and put into operation.
The 220kV/380kV transformer station, built by Volker Energy Solutions, together with TenneT, is located next to the Euromax terminal in Maasvlakte.
Developed by Vattenfall, the wind farm will be connected to two offshore substations, the HKZ Alpha and HKZ Beta, from where the electricity will be transported via export cables to the substation on land.
A topside for the first of the project’s two High Voltage Alternating Current (HVAC) offshore transformer stations was sent off from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) last month.
Hollandse Kust Zuid, currently under construction some 20 kilometres off the Dutch coast, is the first subsidy-free offshore wind project to reach this stage of development. The wind farm will also be the largest in the world once fully commissioned by the summer of 2023.
The project will comprise 140 Siemens Gamesa 11 MW wind turbines.