Van Oord to build wind farm off Belgium

The wind farm will be constructed on the Blight Bank, 46 km off the coast of Zeebrugge, Belgium. The developer and client is Belwind nv and a number of Dutch and Belgian investment companies are shareholders in Belwind. The contract value amounts to some €280m and is Van Oord’s largest award this year. Execution has already started and the project is scheduled for completion in November 2010.

Pieter van Oord, CEO of Van Oord said, ‘Since 2002 Van Oord has been involved in building offshore wind farms in North West Europe. This is Van Oord’s second EPC (Engineering, Procurement and Construction) contract. Earlier we completed the Princess Amalia wind farm project off the coast of Ijmuiden in the Netherlands. Our knowledge and experience is concentrated in our business unit Offshore Wind Projects (OWP). The award of the Belwind project confirms our leading role as EPC contractor in North West Europe’.

The scope of works involve the construction of the foundation for 55 wind turbines, the installation of subsea cables between the wind turbines and a subsea export cable, a 165 MW offshore high voltage station and the subsequent placement of the 55 turbines. As of 2011 the first phase of the Belwind project will provide 165,000 families with environmentally friendly power.