The Netherlands: Offshore wind giant GEMINI awards long-term maintenance contract to Belgian OWA and German EWE OSS

The Gemini offshore wind park in the Dutch North Sea, located 85 km north of the Dutch coast, is to be one of the world’s largest wind farms, both in terms of size as well as production (total capacity of 600 MW). Gemini is being built on two locations close to each other, ‘Buitengaats’ and ‘ZeeEnergie’. 

Offshore Wind & Assistance (OWA), the offshore maintenance specialist of offshore solutions provider GeoSea (DEME Group) will operate and maintain the Balance of Plant for both windfarms. Next to providing marine logistics, the scope of works includes the maintenance of all foundations above and below water (2 x 75 WTG foundations + 2 OHVS foundations) as well as the maintenance of the cable & scour protection (2 export cables, infield cables, export connector cable, scour protection at WTG and OHVS foundations)

EWE Offshore Service & Solutions GmbH (EWE-OSS), the offshore subsidiary of the Oldenburg-based energy provider, will be in charge of operating, maintaining and monitoring two transformer stations at sea and one transformer station in Eemshaven. It will also be responsible for the network management of the two 220 kV export cables that will transport the electricity to land and a 380 kV stretch of cable on land that will connect the electricity to the transmission network. 

“OWA has quite some experience in offshore maintenance activities on the North Sea and can count on the longstanding expertise of parent company GeoSea and other offshore companies within the DEME Group. It allows us to export our maintenance know-how on a long-term basis on the entire European energy market,” confirms Stijn Delauré, General Manager Offshore & Wind Assistance NV. 

 “We are very pleased that the operators of this fascinating project have placed their confidence in us,” says Ines Kolmsee, Chief Technical Officer of EWE AG. “It is also a positive affirmation of our strategy not just to implement our own projects but also to operate as a service provider in the offshore sector.” EWE OSS will be supported with this contract by EWE NETZ and BTC – two other companies in the EWE Group.”  

The contract covers a period of 5 years, starting in 2016.