IMDC
Metocean Campaign – Princess Elisabeth Energy Island
The Princess Elisabeth Island (PEI), is intended to be the world's first artificial energy island. Elia sought to develop and build new grid infrastructure in the Belgian North Sea as part of this MOG2 project. The infrastructure on the island was designed to connect the wind farm export cables from the Princess Elisabeth zone while also functioning as a hub for future interconnectors with the UK (Nautilus) and/or Denmark (TritonLink). The artificial energy island is expected to have a maximum capacity of 3.5 GW and will be formed with concrete caissons that will be sailed to and put in place before being backfilled with sand.
IMDC defined a scope for a metocean campaign to acquire the necessary data on the site conditions and provided the datasets for validation of the project’s numerical modelling. The monitoring scope awarded by Elia to IMDC consisted of 6 months of stationary monitoring, by means of a seabed frame ánd mobile measurements, covering 6 full tidal cycles. Metocean measurements were performed on 3 locations across the Noordhinder sandbank upon which the PEI is situated.
The following services were provided by IMDC:
- Monitoring scope definition
- Stationary seabed frame measurements, including: Current profile (ADCP), Seabed currents (Aquadopp), Turbidity (LISST-AOBS)
- Through tide measurements in varying tidal conditions, including: Current profile (ADCP), Turbidity profile (SiltProfiler), Watersampling
- Processing, Reporting and Interpretation / Analysis
