The consortium will be responsible for the design, fabrication, installation and commissioning of the island’s high-voltage infrastructure, which includes four alternating-current substations installed directly on the structure of the island. Two of these will be 1,050-megawatt substations; the others two will have a capacity of 700 megawatts. A service module and a garage are also included in the contract.
Construction of the substations will begin in May 2025 and is expected to take until the first quarter of 2029. Smulders will manufacture part of the infrastructures in its Belgian factories and perform final assembly at its new site in Vlissingen in the Netherlands. Installation on the island will commence in 2027 with a view to commissioning in 2030.
Princess Elisabeth Island will be the world’s first energy island to combine direct (HVDC) and alternating (HVAC) current. Located approximately 45 kilometres from the coast, it is part of a project to establish an offshore grid network, which will receive the electricity generated by offshore wind farms in the area and deliver it onshore. A true centralised energy hub, the island will also create interconnectors for energy exchange with other countries when their wind farms are not producing to their full capacity.
This new contract underlines the Group’s ability to create exceptional offshore wind infrastructure, with more than 30 electrical substations already completed for the European market. Major contracts won include the wind farm substation off Saint-Brieuc Bay in France, and two offshore electrical substations serving Scotland’s Moray West and Inch Cape offshore wind farms.