Eemshaven (; ) is a
seaport
A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Hamburg, Manc ...
in the province of
Groningen
Groningen ( , ; ; or ) is the capital city and main municipality of Groningen (province), Groningen province in the Netherlands. Dubbed the "capital of the north", Groningen is the largest place as well as the economic and cultural centre of ...
in the north of the
Netherlands
, Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...
.
In 1968, the
Dutch government declared the
Ems estuary
An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime enviro ...
(
Eemsmond
Eemsmond (; ) is a former Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality with a population of 15,864 in the north of the province of Groningen (province), Groningen in the northeast of the Netherlands. On 1 January 2019 it merged with the municip ...
) to be an economic key region. One of the key developments for the region was the construction of a seaport called Eemshaven. The
port
A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Hamburg, Manch ...
was officially opened by
Queen Juliana
Juliana (; Juliana Louise Emma Marie Wilhelmina; 30 April 1909 – 20 March 2004) was List of monarchs of the Netherlands, Queen of the Netherlands from 1948 until her abdication in 1980.
Juliana was the only child of Queen Wilhelmina and Duke ...
in 1973. Industry and shipping were slow to develop at the site.
In 2013, a ferry service connects to the German island of
Borkum
Borkum (; ) is an island and a municipality in the Leer District in Lower Saxony, northwestern Germany. It is situated east of Rottumeroog and west of Juist.
Geography
Borkum is bordered to the west by the Westerems strait (which forms the ...
. A ferry service to
Rosyth
Rosyth () is a town and Garden City in Fife, Scotland, on the coast of the Firth of Forth.
Scotland's first Garden city movement, Garden City, Rosyth is part of the Greater Dunfermline Area and is located 3 miles south of Dunfermline city cen ...
, Scotland, was to start by late October 2019. The plan was officially abandoned in 2020.
A number of power plants operate at the site. Both Electrabel and NUON operate a
gas-fired power plant
A gas-fired power plant, sometimes referred to as gas-fired power station, natural gas power plant, or methane gas power plant, is a thermal power station that burns natural gas to generate electricity. Gas-fired power plants generate almost a ...
there while RWE Innogy operates a wind farm at the site. RWE is operating a coal-fired plant.
The static inverter station of
HVDC
A high-voltage direct current (HVDC) electric power transmission system uses direct current (DC) for electric power transmission, in contrast with the more common alternating current (AC) transmission systems. Most HVDC links use voltages betwe ...
NorNed
NorNed is a long high-voltage direct current submarine power cable between Feda, Norway and the seaport of Eemshaven in the Netherlands, which interconnects both countries' electrical grids. It was once the longest submarine power cable in the ...
is situated at Eemshaven. One endpoint of the
COBRAcable
COBRAcable (''COpenhagen-BRussels-Amsterdam cable'') is a ±320 kV, 700 MW High-voltage direct current, HVDC submarine power cable pair between Eemshaven, the Netherlands and Endrup near Esbjerg, Denmark. The cable is jointly owned by E ...
HVDC transmission line to
Esbjerg
Esbjerg (, ) is a seaport city and seat of Esbjerg Municipality on the west coast of the Jutland peninsula in southwest Denmark. By road, it is west of Kolding and southwest of Aarhus. With an urban area, urban population of 71,554 (1 January ...
, Denmark is also planned to be built here.
Eemshaven is the landfall point for a high-speed transatlantic fiber-optic cable that connects the U.S. and Europe.
Google data center
On 23 September 2014,
Google
Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...
announced that it plans to spend $773 million building a data center. Since 2022 this datacenter is up and running.
Ferry Eemshaven - Kristiansand
The ferry connection from Eemshaven to Kristiansand started April 2022 the 2020 founded cruise-ferry company
Holland Norway Lines operated one ship, the
MS Romantika on a route between Eemshaven and
Kristiansand
Kristiansand is a city and Municipalities of Norway, municipality in Agder county, Norway. The city is the fifth-largest and the municipality is the sixth-largest in Norway, with a population of around 116,000 as of January 2020, following th ...
. The charter of the ship was announced on 1 November 2021, and was due to last three years with two one-year extensions.
This route has now closed and the MS Romantika is moored at Emden in Germany.
Gallery
File:Eemshaven1.jpg, Picture of Eemshaven
File:Goliath Poldermolen.jpg, Smock mill
The smock mill is a type of windmill that consists of a sloping, horizontally weatherboarded, thatched, or shingled tower, usually with six or eight sides. It is topped with a roof or cap that rotates to bring the sails into the wind. This t ...
Goliath in front of the wind farm
A wind farm, also called a wind park or wind power plant, is a group of wind turbines in the same location used to produce electricity. Wind farms vary in size from a small number of turbines to several hundred wind turbines covering an exten ...
Growind
Eemshaven officieel geopend Weeknummer 73-25 - Open Beelden - 77796.ogv, Opening 1973, newsreel
See also
*
Holland Norway Lines
References
External links
*
{{Authority control
Transport in Het Hogeland
Germany–Netherlands border crossings
Ports and harbours of the Netherlands
Ports and harbours of the North Sea
Articles containing video clips
1973 establishments in the Netherlands