First power at Borssele III & IV

First power has been achieved at the 731.5MW Borssele III & IV Borssele III & IV (731.5MW) Offshoreoff Zeeland, Netherlands, Europe Click to see full details project off the coast of the Netherlands.

The project is due to be fully commissioned in October, by which time 77 of MHI Vestas’ V164-9.5 turbines will provide enough output to meet 2.3% of Dutch electricity demand.

It was developed by the Blauwwind consortium, which consists of investment manager Partners Group, fossil-fuel giant Shell, Dutch energy company Eneco, Mitsubishi subsidiary Diamond Generating Europe and offshore construction firm Van Oord.

The group had secured a €54.50/MWh offtake deal for the project in the second Dutch tender in 2016 – a 25% reduction from an earlier round, and less than half of the auction ceiling price.

Laurens van Pijkeren, MHI Vestas project director said despite a number of hurdles presented by the coronavirus pandemic, Dutch consumers are moving towards a clean energy future.

Pijkeren said: “The collaborative efforts of all project partners has enabled MHI Vestas to install 36 of the largest turbines in the world on schedule, despite a myriad of challenges arising from Covid-19.”

The developers plan to carry out control testing before commissioning one turbine per day, they stated.

Shell and Eneco have both agreed to buy half of the output from the project from the Dutch grid. Eneco is due to sell output from a 90MW portion of the project to Microsoft to power the technology giant’s Dutch data centres.