Nexans has reached two key milestones in its major contract to create the high voltage power export connection for Scotland’s Beatrice 588 MW offshore wind farm. The first of the two 400 kV onshore cable links and the high voltage accessories have been installed successfully and tested on site. At the same time, the Nexans factory in Norway has completed the manufacture of the 220 kV offshore cable and loaded the final section onto the Group’s Skagerrak cable laying vessel for the journey across the North Sea to the Moray Firth, where it will be installed and later trenched into the seabed by Nexans’ Capjet system.
The Beatrice Offshore Windfarm project, scheduled to be fully operational by 2019, is a joint venture of SSE, Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and Red Rock Power Limited – the UK subsidiary of China’s SDIC Power Holding Co. Located in the Moray Firth the 84 turbine array will be Scotland’s largest wind farm.
To export the energy from the wind farm to the grid, the two offshore cables take a route of 70 km 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 20 km route to Blackhillock substation. From there, the 400 kV onshore cables will transmit the electricity to the grid.
Nexans was awarded the turnkey contract to design, manufacture, test, deliver, and install both circuits of the complete power transmission cable system. This included the delivery of a total of 265 km of cables, including 145 km of 220 kV offshore cables, 115 km of 220 kV and 5 km of 400 kV onshore cables and the associated high voltage accessories.
Nexans completed the laying and burial of the first offshore cable route in 2017 and connected it to the offshore platform in February 2018. In March 2018, Nexans installed the 400 kV onshore circuits and their outdoor sealing ends, carrying out the termination works horizontally prior to connecting them vertically at Blackhillock substation.
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