Dutch energy company Eneco has agreed to purchase all the green electricity generated from the new Belgian offshore wind project, SeaMade with 487MW capacity.
Image: Eneco to buy all the power from SeaMade wind project. Photo: Courtesy of Eneco.
Eneco is one of the shareholders along with Engie Electrabel and the Otary consortium, in the wind project, for which financing was finalized recently. Eneco has signed a power purchase agreement (PPA) with the other shareholders in this regard.
The €1.3bn SeaMade project which will be located off the coast at Zeebrugge, Belgium, will be powered by 58 of Siemens Gamesa’s SG 8.0-167 Direct Drive offshore wind turbines, each with 8MW of power generating capacity.
Each of the turbines will weigh about 465tons. The turbines will be 109m tall, while the rotor diameter will be 167m.
Construction of the wind farm is expected to begin next year and could be finished in 2020. The European Investment Bank (EIB) has agreed to provide €250m in finance for the project.
For the wind project, EIB is offering the guaranteed loan under the European Fund for Strategic Investments under the Juncker Plan.
The electricity generated from the wind project will be sufficient to power 485,000 households, while avoiding more than 500,000 tons of CO2 emissions from entering the atmosphere annually.
The SeaMade offshore wind project includes two wind farms Mermaid and Seastar with 235MW and 252MW capacities, respectively.
The Seastar wind farm and the Mermaid wind farm will be located about 40km and 54km off the Belgian coast, respectively.
SeaMade shareholders are Otary consortium with 70% stake, Engie Electrabel with 17.5% and Eneco with 12.5%.
Eneco chief strategic growth officer Kees-Jan Rameau said: “We aim for growth with respect to customers, sustainable energy and smart energy services. These areas are strongly interrelated.
“For example, as a result of the acquisition of ENI last year, we welcomed a large number of new customers in Belgium. I am proud that, in time, this long-term agreement will allow us to supply them with green power that is completely generated locally.”
Recently, DEME’s subsidiaries Dredging International, GeoSea and Tideway have secured contracts worth €500m for SeaMade offshore wind farm.