Jee has been awarded a contract by Scottish Power Renewables to carry out an array cable optimization study for the East Anglia ONE (EAONE) offshore wind farm.
EAONE is a development planned off the coast of East Anglia for 102 turbines; enough to power more than 50,000 homes every year.
Scottish Power Renewables has contracted Jee to optimise the wind farm array cable layout, focusing on minimising CAPEX and OPEX. The study will aim to minimise potential loss of revenue should one cable fail, by investigating the effect of different route configurations. The interaction with the seabed is also a major consideration due to the presence of sandwaves. The cost-benefits of adding cable redundancy to the system to minimise downtime will be investigated.
Martyn Campbell, Senior Engineer at Jee said: “We are delighted to be working with Scottish Power Renewables on this project and are looking forward to investigating the interesting environmental challenges presented by the project’s geographical location. Recent seabed surveys have indicated the presence of wrecks, and therefore potential war graves, and areas of metallic debris, thought to be potentially unexploded ordinance (UXO). When planning the route we will need to take care in avoiding these obstacles and will also need to avoid disturbing the protected natural reefs of Sabellaria (a marine worm).”
As part of the study Jee will also determine the size of cable needed for the various sections of the route. The size of the cable will depend on the power load through it and therefore larger cores will be required nearer the substation. A loop configuration may help to reduce the number of individual sections of larger diameter cable, but the lengths of the cable may increase as a result.
Jee will work closely with Scottish Power Renewables, using industry best practice and hold workshops with all stakeholders. Jee will call upon its track record in renewables engineering and consider lessons learnt from previous windfarm projects to ensure that the project delivers the optimum route solution for Scottish Power Renewables
Jee’s renewables expertise includes route planning, cable protection design (CPS), HDD/landfall engineering, on-bottom stability, cable installation analysis, integrity management and decommissioning plans.