Rijkswaterstaat has built an Offshore Expertise Center (OEC) next to the Haringvliet sluice in Stellendam. Rijkswaterstaat started the OEC as a unique test location for the sensors of the Maritime Information Service Point (MIVSP), but it is now also used for information and education and as a meeting place for stakeholders in the North Sea. In the coming years, the OEC will grow into a fully-fledged public facility where parties collaborate, learn, and innovate to keep the North Sea safe, livable, accessible, economically viable, and in balance with nature.
A lifelike test setup for MIVSP's sensors
The OEC test facility is a 1:1 copy of the upper layer of the offshore transformer stations of grid operator TenneT in the North Sea. The MIVSP sensors can be tested here in a realistic setup, considering their mutual interactions. The coastal location of the OEC allows for realistic, practice-oriented test scenarios for the functioning of sensors in the North Sea. This is convenient because testing at sea is much more expensive and complicated than on land.
The OEC is more than a testing center
The OEC is also used for information and education. In that context, an 'experience path' has been created at the OEC. Walking along the path, you will see on picture boards how the Netherlands is developing offshore wind farms in a nature-friendly manner and what role information provision plays in this. In the meantime, you will pass specially planted dune plants and wild flowers and insect hotels and beehives. The whole brings to life the importance of the energy transition, sustainability and cooperation in the North Sea in an appealing way.
Learning and innovating together
The OEC is the place where parties conduct research on the North Sea and collaborate on applications for information provision at sea. While it is already the home base for initiatives such as Connectivity Fieldlab North Sea and Offshore Condition Based Maintenance, the expertise centre will be increasingly used in the future.
Together with knowledge and research institutions and companies, projects are being launched that allow users to better coordinate their activities on the North Sea. And with the data collected at sea, new applications and innovations are made possible. For example, the University of Amsterdam is developing a model using MIVSP bird radars to predict bird migration around offshore wind farms.