wiredinUSA May 2019

Power in the field

Danish delay

Photo by Chris Barbalis on Unsplash

Image: NKT

Construction of two offshore wind farms, Vesterhav Syd and Nord, has been postponed to 2023 from2020. Themovewas confirmed by the project’s turbine supplier, Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy SA, in a regulatory filing. Siemens Gamesa was informed by the client, two special purpose companies owned by the Swedish state-owned utility Vattenfall AB. However, the agreement for the supply, operation and maintenance of the 41 offshore wind turbines is still in place. In late 2018 Vattenfall said it would wait for the result of an appeal process at theDanish energy board of appeals before taking the final investment decision for Vesterhav Syd and Vesterhav Nord. This February, the energy board of appeal canceled and withdrew the part of Vesterhav Syd’s construction license that concerns the environmental impact assessment (EIA). The board’s decision means that a new EIA process will need to be initiated.

Working on behalf of Subsea 7, NKT has handed over its 163km, 145kV high voltage cable system to carry power from the onshore substation at Kollsnes, north of Bergen, to the Martin Linge oil and gas field. The cable is believed to be the world’s longest installed submarine HVAC cable. NKT designed, engineered, manufactured and installed the connection, comprising a 145kV three-core XLPE HVAC submarine cable and fiber optic links, with a 55MW capacity. A 3.5km-long, 17.5kV infield cable was also installed, including 500m of specially engineered dynamic cable to connect the platform to a floating storage and offloading vessel. The field is operated by Equinor, who say that a “comprehensive hook-up and completion job is currently underway”, involving around 650 people at work offshore at any time. Activities in the field will be powered from the onshore power grid, instead of from offshore/onsite generators, and are scheduled to come on-stream in the first quarter of 2020.

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wiredInUSA - May 2019