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A future below the waves

With the establishment of a technical training academy as well as a massive four year equipment and innovation investment programme, dredging and marine contractor Van Oord clearly see a big future for offshore wind development. Director of Offshore Wind Projects, Johan van Wijland, speaks to PES about their plans for the future.

PES: Welcome to PES. Can you begin by telling us a little about your company and explaining how it serves the wind sector?

Johan van Wijland: Van Oord is an international dredging and marine contractor with two offshore business units; one serving the oil & gas industry and one dedicated for Offshore Wind projects. Van Oord has a turnover of 1.7 billi

Within the framework of the call for bids announced in France to construct five offshore wind farms (3,000 MWe), the GDF-Suez/Vinci and Iberdrola/Eole Res consortiums, with each of which our group has signed a strategic partnership agreement, submitted their bids on January 11.
These bids will be evaluated on the basis of three criteria:
§ The quality of the industrial and social project,
§ The electricity purchase price,
§ Marine environment protection.

A second call for bids will be announced in April 2012, regarding geographical construction zones still to be specified.

Our group's proposal involves our M5000 wind turbine technology for the sites defined by

In partnership with the University of Corsica and the French Nuclear and Alternative Energies Commission, the Hydrogen & Energy Storage of AREVA inaugurated on January 9th the MYRTE platform at the University of Corsica site in Vignola, close to Ajaccio.

MYRTE platform aims to demonstrate the feasibility of a solar energy storage solution using hydrogen technologies to mitigate the fluctuations of solar power generation, and contribute to securing Corsica's power grid.

After more than two and a half years of work, the 560 kWc photovoltaic power plant was connected to an innovative energy storage system developed by AREVA, made of an electrolyzer, hydrogen and oxygen reserves, and a fuel cell.

MYRTE has been runnin

Once again, we've polled thousands of our readers and asked them where they believe solar power is heading, and where the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats lie. The questions went out to our respondents in the closing months of 2011, and the answers here serve as a litmus for perhaps the most significant year our industry (or perhaps any industry) has seen in a number of decades.

Once again, we've polled thousands of our readers and asked them where they believe wind power is heading, and where the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats lie. The questions went out to our respondents in the closing months of 2011, and the answers here serve as a litmus for perhaps the most significant year our industry (or perhaps any industry) has seen in a number of decades.

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