HIGH VOLTAGE CABLES
FEATURE SPONSOR
FIND A SOLUTION NOT A FAULT
Many industry experts suggest that reducing electrical faults is a key way to reduce the operation and maintenance costs associated with offshore wind farms going forward. Mostly because of the increased costs of offshore cable failures, this can be anywhere between 10 and 100 times more costly when compared to onshore ones. With round 3 wind farms being up to double the distance from shore than round 1, this is increasingly worrying.
OFFSHORE POWER FAULTS Common causes of offshore power faults are inadequacies in the design of cable/ cable accessories, insufficient mechanical protection, but most commonly, poor installation practice. It has been reported that on average, there are more than double the number of faults per 100 kilometres of offshore cable to the equivalent onshore.
SPECIALIST OPERATOR
CGI’s Limited, based in Kent, specialise in the field of offshore cable jointing and have been working on offshore wind farms for ten years now. The first of which was the North Hoyle wind farm situated off the coast of Rhyl in North Wales, before going on to apply their skills and knowledge to the construction of a vast proportion of the UK’s offshore wind farms, as well as some in Northern Europe.
Their expanding team of skilled, apprentice trained cable jointers have worked on both onshore and offshore power cable projects world-wide, up to voltages of 132kV. They also have their own state of the art VLF (Very Low Frequency) testing kit which has been used in the commissioning on some of these offshore wind farms.
With vast amounts of offshore wind farms now installed worldwide and with more planned, increased focus are being placed on the importance of reducing the costs of producing this energy source. Through both the initial construction phase as well as during the operation and maintenance of the projects lifecycle, some targets have even been set to reduce these costs by around 25% in total.
HANDS-ON EXPERIENCE
The hands-on experience of the company’s Directors combined with their background of working in a cable and cable accessory design laboratory means that they are able to provide the company with an insight into the most common causes of faults in offshore power cables. As well as, more importantly, how as an ‘industry’ they can set about minimising these errors and subsequently lowering the high repair and outage costs that come with them on projects going forward.
OFFSHORE INCREASED RISK CGI’s Directors point out that there is a much higher chance of a cable fault at sea than on land due to the sheer length of the export cable that has to be laid to feed the power to the onshore grid. Cables in the sea are much more susceptible to the elements, issues can occur from the movement of cables over time, due to the tide and current movements causing mechanical wear.
20
www.windenergynetwork.co.uk
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116