North of the Maasvlakte (The Netherlands), TenneT is developing the Hollandse Kust (zuid) offshore grid for the connection of new wind farms. Four offshore cables will be buried in the North Sea bed. For the first ten kilometres of the offshore cable route, these cables will be sunk 5.5 metres into the seabed to cross the busy Rotterdam "Maasmond".The first two cables were installed in September 2020 and now the remaining cables will follow. August 3, the underwater robot 'Deep Dig-It' has successfully crossed the Rotterdam Maasmond with the third cable and is now on its way to the recently installed Beta jacket in the Hollandse Kust (zuid) wind area. The Van Oord - Hellenic Cables consortium is installing the two cables to the Beta platform. Van Oord developed the Deep Dig-It, a remote-controlled underwater trencher, especially for this project. Van Oord's Deep Dig-It is a Tracked Remotely Operated Vehicle (TROV) that travels on the seabed unmanned, making a deep trench for the cables by liquefying the seabed. At the same time, this underwater trencher lays the cables in the trench and closes it. The installation of the 34 kilometres of cable route will take about four weeks and is expected to be completed by mid-September.
