Evelop signs contractor to work on four offshore projects
Evelop, the wind project arm of Dutch sustainable energy company Econcern, has signed up Van Oord, a dredging and marine contractor also based in the Netherlands, to work with it over the next four years on four offshore wind farms with a combined maximum capacity of 1500 MW. "We are already working successfully together in the development of the Q7 wind farm in the Dutch sector of the North Sea, which we are going to open in June," says Econcern's Dirk Berkhout. The Q7 project is 120 MW. The deal with Van Ord is for realisation of wind turbine foundations and electrical connections and is worth some EUR 1.5 billion. The first project will be the 330 MW Belwind project off the coast of Belgium. The final investment decision is planned for mid-2008, says Evelop, with the project slated to come online at the beginning of 2010. It will use 3 MW turbines supplied by Vestas (“uåX˜äŠÊ˜·³Ç, April 2008). The three other projects, all in Germany, are Gode Wind, OWP West and Albatros. "This long term partnership matches perfectly with our sustainable strategy of realising one offshore wind farm per year with several high quality organisations," says Berkhout.