Dutch TenneT completes drilling of protective conduits for offshore wind farm, cable laying in 2027

en.Wedoany.com Reported - Dutch grid operator TenneT has completed directional drilling beneath the beach at Maasvlakte and part of the seabed. Nine plastic protective conduits have been installed in the boreholes, creating a protected landfall corridor for offshore wind farm cables. As a next step, TenneT will connect the conduits for the IJmuiden Ver Gamma and Nederwiek 2 wind farms to the conduits previously installed beneath the dunes on land.

This corridor is a key element in connecting the three offshore wind farms to the Dutch national high-voltage grid. Because the water depth off the coast of Maasvlakte is too shallow for cable-laying vessels to approach the beach, protective conduits are required beneath the beach and seabed to allow high-voltage cables to be safely pulled from sea to shore.

With the drilling completed, work has shifted to the connection phase. TenneT is using steel sheet piles to construct two temporary construction pits on the beach, excavated to a depth of approximately 7 to 8 metres below beach level. These works will provide the space needed to connect the conduits from the offshore side with the pipeline section beneath the dunes on land. The construction pit for the IJmuiden Ver Beta wind farm connection will be excavated next year.

At the bottom of the construction pits, TenneT will use dedicated connection structures to join the conduits pulled in from the sea with the pipes already installed beneath the dunes, forming a continuous protected route extending from the sea to behind the dunes. From spring 2027, cables can be pulled from sea to shore through this corridor. Once the connections are completed, the construction pits will be backfilled with sand, after which the steel sheet piles on the beach will be removed, allowing the beach to gradually return to its original state and be used for recreational purposes again.

In early 2027, most operations will shift offshore. A cable-laying vessel will arrive off the coast of Maasvlakte to pull the cables ashore through the conduits, after which the cables will be laid and buried beneath the seabed in deeper waters, all the way to TenneT's converter platform at the offshore wind farms.

The Maasvlakte landfall has been designed for three wind farms: IJmuiden Ver Beta, IJmuiden Ver Gamma, and Nederwiek 2. Each wind farm will receive a connection with a capacity of 2 gigawatts, together connecting 6 gigawatts of sustainable power, equivalent to the installed capacity of approximately six large gas-fired power plants. The first sustainable power from the IJmuiden Ver Beta wind farm is expected to come ashore at Maasvlakte and be fed into the grid in 2029.