Transmission system operator TenneT and marine engineering and construction company Seatrium have held a strike steel ceremony at Tuas Boulevard Yard in Singapore, marking the start of construction of offshore platform IJmuiden Ver Beta, one of the first Dutch 2 GW grid connection projects.
The high voltage direct current (HVDC) offshore converter platform will connect the IJmuiden Ver Beta windfarm and will be installed in the Dutch North Sea in 2028.
In 2023, TenneT selected the GE Vernova-Seatrium consortium to supply the offshore HVDC platforms for the 2 GW Maasvlakte cluster.
GE Vernova is responsible for the advanced 2 GW HVDC system and consortium partner Seatrium will engineer and manufacture the platform.
Under the framework agreement, the GE Vernova-Seatrium consortium has been awarded three Dutch projects (IJmuiden Ver Beta, IJmuiden Ver Gamma and Nederwiek 2) that will be connected to the high voltage grid at Maasvlakte.
Once commissioned in 2029, the grid connection will deliver 2 GW of electricity from the wind farm IJmuiden Ver Beta in the North Sea.
The HVDC transmission system will connect the windfarm off the Dutch coast with the high voltage grid on land. The wind power produced offshore will be transported as alternating current to the offshore converter platform, using a 66-kV connection and the wind farm will be connected directly to the offshore platform.
“After almost 18 months of engineering and procurement work, we are pleased to commence the first steel fabrication milestone for the construction of the first offshore HDVC platform for TenneT, working closely with our partner, GE Vernova.
"We have taken time to prepare meticulously for this project through detailed engineering work, which will enable us to achieve greater operational synergies for subsequent projects,” said Samuel Wong, Executive Vice President, Seatrium Energy (Fixed Platforms).
“We are excited about the start of construction of the IJmuiden Ver Beta platform. This marks a major milestone in TenneT’s innovative 2GW Program. Together with our consortium partner Seatrium, we look forward to helping accelerate the expansion of the European offshore grid, which is critical to the continent’s climate neutral goals,” added Johan Bindele, Grid Systems Integration Business Line Leader at GE Vernova.