wiredInUSA May 2018

Scottish project progress

Maintaining the links, 20 years on

Image: www.nexans.com

Nexans has installed the first of two 400kV onshore cable links at Scotland’s Beatrice 588MW offshore wind farm. At the same time, the Nexans factory in Norway has completed the manufacture of a 220kV offshore cable and loaded the final section onto the group’s Skagerrak cable laying vessel to travel to the Moray Firth. It will be installed and trenched into the seabed using Nexans’ Capjet system. The Beatrice project, scheduled to be fully operational by 2019, is a joint venture between SSE, Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and Red Rock Power Ltd — the UK subsidiary of China’s SDIC Power Holding Co. It will be Scotland’s largest wind farm, with 84 turbines. To export the energy from the wind farm to thegrid, the twooffshorecables takea70km route along the seabed to a landfall point to the west of Portgordon on the Moray coast. A transition joint bay then connects them to the onshore cable system, which takes a 20km route to Blackhillock substation. From there, the 400kV onshore cables will transmit the electricity to the grid.

Image: www.abb.com

ABB has secured a contract to upgrade Australia’s Murraylink and Directlink HVDC transmission links. ABB will replace the control and protection systems with its ABB Ability MACH control system. The MACH control and protection system is designed to monitor, control and protect the sophisticated technology in the converter stations in order to ensure power security, reliability and efficiency. The 220MWMurraylink HVDC interconnector connects the Riverland region in South Australia and Sunraysia region in Victoria through converter stations at Red Cliffs in Victoria and Berri in South Australia. ABB said that the underground cables were selected for Murraylink link to minimize visual and environmental impact. The 180MW Directlink underground connects the New South Wales and Queensland electrical grids in Australia. Both transmission links were originally installed by ABB nearly 20 years ago. ABB will undertake the upgrade work for the Australian energy infrastructure company APA Group, which is responsible for managing Directlink and Murraylink facilities owned by Energy Infrastructure Investments.

wiredInUSA - May 2018

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