The CrossWind consortium, a joint venture between Shell in the Netherlands and Eneco, has been awarded the tender for the subsidy-free offshore wind farm Hollandse Kust (noord).
The wind farm will help to meet the objectives of the Dutch Climate Accord and the EU’s Green Deal. Both companies have already taken their final investment decisions on the project.
The consortium plans to have Hollandse Kust (noord) operational in 2023 with an installed capacity of 759 MW, generating at least 3.3 TWh per year. The wind farm will be located 18.5 kilometers off the coast of the Netherlands near the town of Egmond aan Zee.
“We are pleased that we, together with our trusted partners, are making another major contribution to the Dutch energy transition,” says Kees-Jan Rameau, chief strategic growth officer at Eneco.
“We are using our combined experience, expertise and financial capacity for the rapid realization of the first offshore innovative wind farm focused on system integration. The sustainable, locally generated energy will make an important contribution to our ambition to support every household and company in the Netherlands to switch to a sustainable and clean energy supply,” adds Rameau.
Offshore wind projects produce intermittent electricity. Balancing these dips and peaks and integrating this electricity into the national energy system requires new technologies. That is why the offshore wind farm will include the following five technology demonstrations that could be implemented at full-scale in the future: a floating solar park; short-term battery storage; turbines that are optimally tuned to the network to minimize the negative wake-effects that wind turbines have on each other; green hydrogen made by electrolysis as a further storage technique and the combination of these individual measures to ensure a continuous power supply regardless of the wind situation.
Working together is crucial for the transition to a cleaner energy system across Europe and within each country. For this reason, the CrossWind team intends to work closely with universities and scientific institutions to develop further technical innovations. The company intends to share the lessons learned from developing this wind farm with a broad audience – varying from the academic world to the general public.
