A world first and a major construction milestone was reached at Ørsted’s Hornsea Project One offshore wind farm in the UK when Tideway completed the export cable installation. With an offshore export cable totalling 467 km, roughly the same distance as Amsterdam to Hamburg, it is the longest AC offshore wind cable ever to have been installed. Additionally, the cable manufacturing and installation were completed months ahead of schedule, DEME said in its release.
When fully operational in 2020, Hornsea Project One’s 174 turbines will generate enough clean electricity for well over one million homes. The world’s largest offshore wind farm was the first project for Tideway’s new cable installation and multifunctional vessel ‘Living Stone’. With its 10,000-tonne cable capacity and cutting-edge dual-lane cable system, ‘Living Stone’ significantly improves cable installation production rates.
The installation scope included laying export cables from three different offshore substations located up to 120 km offshore to the shore via a Reactive Compensation Station, as well as the installation of two interlink cables. Tideway also undertook the boulder removal, pre-sweeping and cable pull-in to the substations, and are completing crossing installation and cable burial.
After the successful installation campaign at Hornsea Project One, ‘Living Stone’ will be mobilised for subsea cable installation for Elia’s ‘Modular Offshore Grid’ in the Belgian sector of the North Sea. The so-called ‘electricity plug’, including an Offshore Switchyard Platform, will be connected to four wind farms. Submarine cables will link the platform with a substation in Belgium, where the wind energy will be injected into the Belgian onshore grid.
About DEME
The Belgian dredging, environmental and marine engineering group DEME is an international market leader for complex marine engineering works.
Building on more than 140 years of experience and know-how, DEME has organically moved into several related sectors, such as the financing of marine engineering and environmental projects, executing complex EPC related marine engineering projects including civil engineering works, the development and construction of renewable energy projects, providing services for the oil, gas and energy sector, the decontaminating and recycling of polluted soils and silts, the harvesting of marine resources, etc.