The Hollandse Kust Noord offshore grid connection deemed "grid ready"

The Hollandse Kust Noord wind farm is located 18.5 km offshore the town of Egmond aan Zee in the Netherlands. The 69-turbine farm is scheduled to be operational in 2023 and has an installed capacity of 759 MW, which will be generating at least 3.3 TWh per year.

In order for an offshore wind farm to be connected to the onshore grid, an offshore grid is required. This offshore grid has now been deemed “grid ready” and the project director of the Hollandse Kunst Noord, West Alpha, and West Beta, Arjan Dams stated how “This means that the complete connection – from our transformer platform at sea to the high-voltage substation along the A9 motorway near Beverwijk – is officially ready to bring green energy ashore. In good cooperation with the contractors, the authorities involved and the environment, this project was carried out within time, scope and budget”.

It is worth mentioning that the offshore grid operator was commissioned to realize five 700MW connections in 2016 and has been delivering one per year since 2019.

The total installed capacity set by the Dutch Energy Agreement will be successfully reached after the connection of the Hollandse Kust Noord and will be 4.7 GW total.

On top of that, the Netherlands already has 13GW of offshore wind power under development and has set a goal of 21 GW total offshore wind capacity by 2030 and 70 GW by 2050.