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Offshore installations begin on Princess Elisabeth Island
Offshore construction has started on the world’s first artificial energy island in the North Sea with tugs and offshore construction support vessels supporting concrete caisson installations
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.
Each 58-m caisson is 28 m wide, and between 23 m and 32 m in height, depending on the presence of a storm wall. They are to be towed from the port of Vlissingen via the Western Scheldt and the North Sea to the island site with four tugs along a 53 nautical mile route.
Once completed, Princess Elisabeth Island, located 45 km off the coast, will serve as a key energy hub connecting future offshore windfarms in the North Sea to the mainland electricity grid, a crucial step in the energy transition.
In a later phase, caisson interiors will be filled with sand to build high-voltage infrastructure that will connect new offshore windfarms.
Operation only proceeds if waves do not exceed 1.5 m and wind speeds remain below 5 Beaufort. The consortium developed emergency procedures, maritime evacuation plans, and strict communication protocols to maintain safety and worked closely with the maritime rescue and co-ordination centre in Ostend, Belgium.
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