The Dutch government has on security grounds excluded Chinese contractors from a tender for a massive North Sea wind grid upgrade led by network operator TenneT, Recharge's sister title Upstream has learned.

Contractor Petrofac has lined up Malaysia Marine & Heavy Engineering (MMHE) to build high voltage direct current (HVDC) substations after it and Japan's Hitachi Energy last week were announced as winners of a €13bn ($14.2bn) contract from TenneT.

The duo will deploy five integration systems to connect offshore wind farms to the Dutch grid, plus a sixth substation to connect to the German network.