Offshore installations begin on Princess Elisabeth Island

A consortium of Dutch and Belgian companies has started offshore installations on what will be the world’s first artificial energy island.

The TM Edison consortium, including DEME, Jan De Nul Group and client Elia Group, are installing the first two concrete caissons on Princess Elisabeth Island with support from a fleet of tugboats operated by Multraship Towage & Salvage.

These 22,000-tonne structures were constructed and prepared in Vlissingen, the Netherlands, and towed 98 km to the site in the Belgian sector of the North Sea to form part of the island’s outer structure.

At the offshore site, the caissons are positioned using tugboats and anchored, then lowered with millimetre precision using advanced surveying techniques and real-time monitoring. The next steps include placing rock armour, filling the caissons with sand and preparing for the installation of the remaining 21 caissons.

DEME said this “is a complex maritime operation involving around 150 people, 10 vessels and four tugboats – all working in close co-ordination with the coastguard and nautical authorities.”

Each towage and installation cycle takes approximately 24 hours and depends on favourable weather and tidal conditions.

Multraship managing director, Leendert Muller previously confirmed to Riviera it is providing tugs, including newbuild azimuth stern drive tugboats Multratug 35 and Multratug 36, for this project. “Multraship is responsible for towing and assembling the caissons from Vlissingen to the island. This project requires significant towing capacity,” Mr Muller said.