Ecowende and Sif join forces to build Hollandse Kust West offshore wind farm

Thursday 21 December 2023

Ecowende and Sif Holding will collaborate on the construction of Ecowende’s offshore wind farm Hollandse Kust West site VI, located about 53 kilometres off the Dutch coast, near IJmuiden. The collaboration for this project between the offshore wind farm developer, a joint venture of Shell and Eneco, and Sif Holding dates to February 2023 when Sif announced having taken a final investment decision on the expansion of its manufacturing facilities in Rotterdam. At that occasion Ecowende, as a launching client for the expanded factory, committed to participate in its financing through an Advance Factory Payment. The project was already in Sif’s order book for 70 kilotonnes but with the signature of the final contract is now firm for production in 2025.

Sif will be responsible for the manufacturing of the 52 extended monopile foundations that will have no transition pieces, but secondary steel components, and that will have a total weight of approximately 70 kilotonnes. Transition piece-less monopiles were successfully applied by Sif in earlier projects offshore the Netherlands, also in the Hollandse Kust Noord project for Crosswind, another joint venture of Shell and Eneco (see picture below). In this transition piece-less design, the secondary steel components like boat-landings, ladders, main access platforms and internal platforms, will be connected to the monopile foundations once these are installed at sea. The secondary steel components will also be delivered by Sif in the same contract.

A new ecological standard

Ecowende, together with partners such as Sif, intends to set a new ecological standard for building and operating wind farms in the North Sea, with minimal impact on the natural habitat of birds, bats and marine mammals, and with a thriving underwater world.

Folkert Visser, CEO and Project Director Ecowende: ”Building a wind farm in harmony with nature is an important condition for eventually achieving the ambition of 70 GW of offshore wind energy by 2050, within the ecological limits of the North Sea. Ecowende will implement various innovations and larger-scale measures to mitigate the negative effects of the wind farm on the local ecology and to stimulate positive effects. For Sif, this implies for example that the monopiles are designed for low noise installation methods and that they can support various wildlife detection and monitoring devices, above and below the water line.”

Fred van Beers, CEO of Sif Holding: ”We are proud for again being valued for our efficiency in delivering monopile foundations for an entire offshore wind farm within a relatively short timeframe and for the strategic position of our manufacturing facilities in Rotterdam. We are grateful that Ecowende has selected Sif for both the fabrication of the extended monopiles foundations as well as the secondary steel components, for a single point of delivery at our Maasvlakte facility. When Van Oord’s new-age installation vessel Boreas will berth at our Maasvlakte facility for the load out of the project, we will have all 52 monopile foundations with their secondary steel components finished and in storage at our site. This is a significant de-risking of the project for both Ecowende and Sif. The fact that Sif has been involved in the manufacturing and supply of foundations for almost all the wind farms in the Dutch North Sea means we have built up a wealth of knowledge over the past 20 years in this specific market."