Newest Shell/Eneco wind farm completed

December 2023 – Construction of the newest wind farm in the North Sea, Hollandse Kust Noord (HKN), is completed on December 20, 2023.

HKN partners Shell and Eneco (joint venture Cross Wind) have now started the handover phase of the site, located 18.5 kilometers (11.5 miles) off the coast of Egmond aan Zee in the Netherlands.

HKN adds 759 MW of renewable energy to the Dutch power grid, helping the Netherlands meet its target of more than 4.5 GW of offshore wind capacity by the end of 2023.

With Hollandse Kust Noord, CrossWind has built a subsidy-free wind farm that is expected to produce at least 3.3 TWh of electricity annually. That is 2.8 percent of the electricity demand in the Netherlands. With the completion of HKN, the target for offshore wind, set more than 10 years ago in the Energy Agreement's Roadmap 2023, has been met.

That 4.5 GW target translates into 15.8% of the Netherlands' electricity demand; produced by all Dutch wind farms. Over 1.6 gigawatts comes from the Shell wind farms Noordzeewind, Borselle III & IV (Shell as part of the joint venture Blauwwind) and Hollandse Kust Noord (Shell as part of the joint venture CrossWind).

More innovations to follow

Around the turn of the year, CrossWind will begin delivering to the Dutch power grid, with Shell Energy selling the electricity to companies and to the market. From 2025, technological innovations will be added at Hollandse Kust Noord. These should demonstrate how an offshore wind farm is valuable even when the wind does not blow or not as hard.

Included is the handling of the wake-effect, in which the blades of HKN's 69 turbines are optimally adjusted. Wake effect can be compared to staying out of the wind when cycling right behind someone else, especially at higher speeds, but also from the turbulent wind directly behind aircraft engines. For the innovations, CrossWind works closely with universities and knowledge institutes.

Maria Kalogera, innovation manager at CrossWind said, "With Hollandse Kust Noord, we developed an idea into a simple concept. We are testing it around the idea so we have a good working concept that we can copy and expand at future offshore wind farms. We research to optimize. With what we learn, we are taking big steps in accelerating the energy transition."

Reference .. Shell and Eneco

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