Effiage to construct electrical substations for world’s first artificial energy island

French civil engineering construction company Eiffage has won an EPCIC contract from the Belgian national electricity transmission network operator Elia Transmission to build four alternating-current electrical substations on Princess Elisabeth Island.

The contract was won through its Belgian arm Eiffage Métal subsidiary Smulders, in a consortium with HSM Offshore Energy and Iv‑Offshore & Energy.

The consortium will be responsible for the design, fabrication, installation, and commissioning of the high-voltage infrastructure, which includes four alternating-current substations installed directly on the structure of the world’s first artificial energy island.

Two of these will be 1.05GW substations while the other two will have a capacity of 700MW. A service module and a garage are also included in the contract.

Construction of the substations will begin in May 2025 and is expected to take until the first quarter of 2029. Smulders will manufacture part of the infrastructure in its Belgian factories and perform final assembly at its new site in Vlissingen in the Netherlands. Installation on the island will begin in 2027 with a target to commission it in 2030.

Princess Elisabeth Island will be the first energy island to combine HVDC and HVAC current. Located some 45 km from the coast, it is part of a project to establish an offshore grid network, which will receive the electricity generated by offshore wind farms in the area and deliver it onshore.

The island will also create interconnectors for energy exchange with other countries when their wind farms are not producing up to their full capacity.

Last month, a consortium of Belgian shipowner and marine services contractor DEME and Greece’s Hellenic Cables, the cables segment of Cenergy Holdings, sealed a deal to supply and install the high-voltage subsea cables for Princess Elisabeth Island.