Installation of Foundations Starts at World’s Largest Inland Water Wind Farm

The construction of Wind Park Fryslân has started.

With finance coming jointly from ten banks and the province of Fryslân, work has commenced on Windpark Fryslân in the Dutch IJsselmeer, south of the Afsluitdijk, six kilometers off the Frisian coast in the Netherlands. The near shore windpark is being built by Zuiderzeewind, a consortium of Van Oord and Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy.  Never before has such a large wind park been built in any fresh water lake in the world.

Yesterday 7 September offshore construction work started with the first of 89 foundations being piled into the bottom of the IJsselmeer.

Standard offshore wind installation vessels cannot be used on this project as the IJsselmeer is land locked and access is through locks which limit the length and breadth of any vessel.

Consequently Van Oord designed and built their own new floating platform vessel already on the IJsselmeer. The platform, which is half the size of a football pitch, serves as the work area for lifting operations which are carried out by the 450t lift Terex Lattice boom crane that has been hired from Sarens. This crane is assisted by a Royal Wagenborg shear legs crane when required. During the piling operation the vessel is pinned on position by legs which afterwards can be raised to allow the platform to be towed to the next foundation location.

The windpark comprises 89 Siemens Gamesa turbines of 4.3 MW, which are placed in a cluster form. With a capacity of 382.7 MW, Windpark Fryslân will supply enough energy for around 500,000 households. This would be more than 70% of the Frisian target of 530.5 MW for wind energy in 2020.

Wind Park Fryslân will be fully operational in 2021.

Source Van Oord and Consortium ZuiderZeeWind