Van Oord to build largest Dutch offshore wind project
The Gemini offshore wind project shareholders, headed by Canada’s Northland Power Inc., announced today that they have reached agreement with the banks on the project’s financing. The financial close will contribute EUR 2.3 billion to the overall construction costs of EUR 2.8 billion. Van Oord has a 10 percent equity stake in this project. The other shareholders are Northland Power Inc. (60 percent), Siemens Project Ventures (20 percent) and HVC (10 percent). The shareholders will contribute equity amounting to a total of more than EUR 400 million. Gemini will be one of the largest offshore wind projects in the world.
EPC contract
In addition to its shareholdings, Van Oord signed the EPC (Engineering, Procurement and Construction) contract for the wind project today. The contract value amounts to more than EUR 1.3 billion.
Construction
Van Oord’s activities will encompass the supply and installation of the foundations, the entire electrical infrastructure including the supply and installation of offshore and onshore high-voltage stations, inter-array and export cables and the installation of the Siemens wind turbines. Project preparations for the execution have already commenced. Construction will start in Q2 2014 and be completed in Q1 2017. Van Oord will deploy several offshore installation vessels including Van Oord’s newly built jack up vessel Aeolus as well as the cable-laying vessel Nexus, which is currently under construction. Nexus will be delivered late 2014.
Gemini
The Gemini wind project will be situated 55km north of the Dutch island of Schiermonnikoog and thus will not be visible from shore. The project will consist of 150 4MW Siemens wind turbines which will supply a total of 600MW of renewable energy to 785,000 households.
Sustainable energy
‘The Gemini project represents an important step towards achieving the targets set out in the Dutch Energy Transition Agreement’, says Van Oord CEO Pieter van Oord. ‘In this agreement the Dutch Government, several organisations and the private sector have committed themselves to increasing the share of sustainable (renewable) energy from 4 percent in 2014 to 16 percent in 2023. Thanks to the 600MW generated by the Gemini wind project, the Netherlands will be one step closer to reaching this goal. Since 2002 Van Oord has been involved in the construction of wind projects. Our track record includes the Princess Amalia (NL), Belwind (B) and Teesside (UK) projects. As the leading Dutch offshore wind contractor, we are proud to be involved in this large and complex Dutch offshore project.’