The Princess Elisabeth Island is a 6-hectare artificial energy island that is set to be completed by 2026. Located in the larger Princess Elisabeth Area, an offshore renewable energy production area in the North Sea, the facility will utilize both direct and alternating current. The European Union has provided funding for part of the construction. This marine power grid will distribute high voltage electricity in the form of direct current (HVDC) and alternating current (HVAC), incorporating renewable energy sources to power the Princess Elisabeth Area while serving as a prototype for future network integration and energy exchange between countries and new wind farms in the North Sea.
To create this artificial energy island, engineers used around 2.3 million m3 of sand. A team of 300 workers has been working on the construction site in Flushing, the Netherlands since September 2023. They have been busy building waterproof diving tanks, with each tank taking 3 months to complete. Each diving tank, made of concrete, is 57m long and nearly 30m wide and goes through a production process comprising 5 stages that take 20 days each to complete.
One of the most impressive stages is the sliding formwork stage, where a diving barrel wall is created with the wall growing nearly 10 cm higher every hour for 10 days straight. Once completed, the diving tank weighs 22,000 tons and will be transported by a semi-submersible vessel to its installation site in the North Sea for temporary storage underwater. The island’s construction is set to be completed in