EoW January 2014

News Corporate

End of Array work for VSMC

VSMC has completed the shallow water-trenching programme for the London Array wind farm project, having started work at the site in 2009. For VSMC, the London Array project consisted of the installation and burial of four export cables and the installation, burial and termination of 178

infield cables. VSMC set a record by completing the installation and burial of 216km of export cables in 12 months and the installation and testing of 202km of infield cables in just nine months.

▲ ▲ Cable laying for London Array site. Photograph courtesy of VSMC website

VSMC was also contracted to trench 177km of infield cables on a challenging work site with strong currents and areas that fall dry, requiring unconventional methods of trenching. CEO Arno van Poppel said: “The success of this project was down to the dedication and commitment of the project team members, all of whom worked hard to ensure that the project was completed safely and to a very high standard.” VSMC – Netherlands Website : www.vsmc.nl Commission completed at Thornton Bank The subsea transmission link connecting one

of the largest offshore wind farms in Europe to the Belgian grid, the Thornton Bank project, has been successfully commissioned by ABB. The work, executed for the Belgian company C-Power NV, was completed on schedule. The transmission link is part of an expansion of the Thornton Bank wind farm. In the first phase of its development, six

▲ ▲ The subsea transmission link. Photograph courtesy and ©C-Power NV, T D’Haenens

wind turbines with a total capacity of 30MW were built and temporarily connected to the mainland by ABB. The second and third phases of the project involved adding 48 wind turbines to the wind farm and connecting the complete wind farm, taking its overall capacity to 325MW. The transformer station platform is 30km offshore in the North Sea. ABB was responsible for the system engineering, design, supply and commissioning of the alternating current subsea cables, the land-based cable systems, the offshore substation and the platform that houses it. The wind turbines are connected via underwater medium-voltage cables to the offshore transformer station where the voltage is boosted to 150kV and connected to the mainland grid. The wind farm has a generating capacity of over 1,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity per year, and by 2020 will contribute approximately seven per cent of Belgium’s targeted renewable energy commitment.

ABB – Switzerland

Website : www.abb.com

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January 2014