Italian cable supplier Prysmian Group has secured a contract worth €200m from Vineyard Wind, the company developing the first offshore wind farm project in the US.

Prysmian

Image: Prysmian to supply cables for Vineyard Wind. Photo: Courtesy of Nicholas Doherty/Unsplash.

As part of the contract, Prysmian will provide the submarine power cable system which will transmit the clean energy generated from the wind farm to mainland power grid.

The notice to proceed is expected by the end of this year and delivery and commissioning of the project is scheduled for 2021.

Prysmian will be responsible for design, manufacture, installation and commissioning of High Voltage Alternating Current (HVAC) cable system that includes two 220kV three-core cables using extruded XLPE insulation. The project requires a total of 134km of power cables.

The submarine cables for the contract will be produced at Prysmian’s facility in Pikkala, Finland and Arco Felice, Italy. Installation and operations of the cables will be performed by the company’s cable laying vessels Cable Enterprise and Ulisse.

Prysmian Group projects executive vice-president Hakan Ozmen said: “This contract reinforces Prysmian Group’s leading position in the submarine cable market and underpins both our continued role and our commitment to the North American offshore wind sector.

“Prysmian offers extensive technical expertise, levering on its wide knowledge and historical experience in this industry, where we ensure our close and local support to our customers throughout the complete project life cycle.

“The US offshore wind market is now demonstrating a high level of motivation with a promising growth forecast and we are excited to contribute to realising this opportunity in the US market.”

For this contract, the company will also provide PRY-CAM permanent monitoring solutions that include a long range of Distributed Temperature Sensing (DTS) and Real Time Thermal Rating (RTTR) systems. The systems collect and analyze data using artificial intelligence and will generate automated alarm signals if a critical situation is identified.

Vineyard Wind is joint venture equally owned by Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and Avangrid Renewables, a subsidiary of Iberdrola.

In March, Prysmian secured a €30m order from EDF Renewables’ Provence Grand Large, a floating offshore wind farm located in South France, for developing a turn-key submarine cable system.

The system to be supplied will include 3km of submarine inter-array cables and 19km of export cables, in addition to land cables of up to 9km in length.