New Wave Media

 

EAONE is a development planned off the coast of East Anglia for 102 turbines; enough to power more than 50,000 homes every year, as quoted by Scottish Power Renewables. 

 

Scottish Power Renewables has contracted Jee to optimize the wind farm array cable layout, focusing on minimizing CAPEX and OPEX. The study will aim to minimize potential loss of revenue should one cable fail, by investigating the effect of different route configurations. The interaction with the seabed is also a major consideration due to the presence of sandwaves. The cost-benefits of adding cable redundancy to the system to minimize downtime will be investigated.

 

Martyn Campbell, Senior Engineer at Jee, said the company will investigate the environmental challenges presented by the project’s geographical location. “Recent seabed surveys have indicated the presence of wrecks, and therefore potential war graves, and areas of metallic debris, thought to be potentially unexploded ordinance (UXO),” Campbell said. “When planning the route we will need to take care in avoiding these obstacles and will also need to avoid disturbing the protected natural reefs of Sabellaria (a marine worm).”  

 

As part of the study, Jee will also determine the size of cable needed for the various sections of the route. The size of the cable will depend on the power load through it and therefore larger cores will be required nearer the substation. A loop configuration may help to reduce the number of individual sections of larger diameter cable, but the lengths of the cable may increase as a result.