First Monopile Installed at OranjeWind, RWE and TotalEnergies' 795 MW Dutch Wind Farm
Jan De Nul's Les Alizes drove the first of 53 monopiles into the Dutch North Sea, kicking off construction on OranjeWind's foundation campaign.
At a Glance
- Jan De Nul's vessel Les Alizes installed the first of 53 monopiles on September 1, 2026, 53 km off the Dutch coast in the Hollandse Kust West zone.
- OranjeWind is a 795 MW joint venture between RWE and TotalEnergies (50/50), using 53 Vestas V236-15.0 MW turbines.
- Each monopile is roughly 90 meters long and 8 meters in diameter, supplied by Sif and installed with bubble curtain noise mitigation.
- Foundations continue through early 2027, cables start late 2026, turbines go up through 2027, with full commissioning targeted for 2028.
A Foundation Campaign Actually Starts
Plenty of offshore wind projects announce timelines years before steel touches the seabed. OranjeWind just crossed that line for real: on September 1, 2026, Jan De Nul's heavy-lift vessel Les Alizes installed the first of 53 monopile foundations, roughly 53 kilometers off the Dutch coast in the Hollandse Kust West zone. The monopile — about 90 meters long and 8 meters in diameter — was fabricated by Sif and shipped out from its Maasvlakte II facility near Rotterdam before being driven into the seabed with bubble curtain technology deployed to limit underwater noise during piling.
It's a genuinely different phase of project risk than permitting or FEED. Vessels are mobilized, contracts are being executed on schedule, and the remaining work is now a construction sequencing problem rather than a regulatory one.
What's Actually Being Built
OranjeWind is a 50/50 joint venture between RWE and TotalEnergies, sized at 795 MW once complete — 53 Vestas V236-15.0 MW turbines, among the largest commercially deployed offshore machines. TenneT is handling the grid connection through its Hollandse Kust West Beta offshore platform. This isn't a first-of-a-kind project technically, but the scale of coordination is real: 53 foundations, 114 km of inter-array cabling, and 53 turbine installations all have to sequence correctly across two more construction seasons before the site can be energized.
What Comes Next
The monopile campaign runs through early 2027. Inter-array cable installation — handled by DEME — starts in late 2026, threading through the same site while foundation work is still underway. Turbine installation follows through 2027 using Jan De Nul's jack-up vessel Voltaire, with full commissioning targeted for 2028. That's roughly two more years of sustained offshore construction activity — foundation and cable work now, turbine installation and commissioning next — before OranjeWind starts actually generating power.
We're now tracking this one on Project Radar, including the full path to construction and which companies are involved at each stage.
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