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Wave Hub and cable prepared for subsea installation
19 July 2010
The latest stage of South West RDA’s (Regional Development
Agency) pioneering Wave Hub project is underway as the hub and its
25km cable are loaded onto a cable laying ship ready for deployment
offshore in the next few weeks.
Wave Hub is creating the world’s largest test site for wave
energy technology by building a grid-connected socket on the
seabed, 16 kilometres off the coast of Cornwall, to which wave
power devices can be connected and their performance evaluated.
The £42 million project has been developed by the South West RDA
and is a cornerstone of its strategy to develop a world class
marine energy industry in South West England.
The cable, which weighs 1,300 tonnes and cost £7 million to
make, is being spooled directly from the JDR Cable Systems’ factory
in Hartlepool onto the cable laying ship MV Nordica at a rate of
400 metres per hour. The delicate operation is running 24 hours a
day and will take around five days to complete.
The Nordica has been chartered by CTC Marine Projects based in
Darlington, County Durham, which has been appointed by the South
West RDA to lay the cable and install Wave Hub on the seabed.
The RDA’s Wave Hub general manager, Guy Lavender, said: “This is
a major milestone for Wave Hub and has been planned with military
precision. We’ve already connected Wave Hub to the cable so it has
been loaded first, followed by the cable itself. The whole
operation needs to be carried out with great care so it will be a
nail biting time for the whole team, but they are very
experienced.
“After that the Nordica will head for the north Cornwall coast
to start the cable laying operation, and weather permitting we
expect Wave Hub to be in the water in early August. This will be
followed by a rock dumping operation to hold the hub and cable in
place, ready for the first wave energy devices to be deployed in
2011.”
Martin Moon, operations director at CTC Marine, said: “CTC
recognises the importance of renewable energy to the UK and
believes Wave Hub is a significant milestone that opens up another
avenue in the renewables market.
“CTC is pleased to be participating in what we hope will be the
start of many such developments. We believe we can bring a
significant contribution and become a major provider to this
emerging business.”
During its manufacture Wave Hub’s cable has been coiled
horizontally around two giant 30 metre diameter rotating ‘spools’
or carousels in JDR’s factory, each of which can carry 2,200
tonnes. The 33,000 volt cable has been manufactured in one
continuous length and is made up of six copper cores, 48 fibre
optic cables, two layers of steel wire armouring and an outer
polymer sheath. It is 16 centimetres in diameter.
The cable is being spooled onto a 2,000 tonne capacity carousel
measuring 15 metres in diameter and 10 metres high and positioned
on the rear deck of the Nordica. The operation is due to be
completed before the end of this week.
Wave Hub is being funded with £12.5 million from the South West
RDA, £20 million from the European Regional Development Fund
Convergence Programme and £9.5 million from the UK government.
An independent economic impact assessment has calculated that
Wave Hub could create 1,800 jobs and inject £560 million in the UK
economy over 25 years. Almost 1,000 of these jobs and £332 million
could be generated in South West England.
Ends
For more information contact Jason Clark, on 07980-834368 or
via
jason.clark@dca-pr.co.uk
Notes to Editors
Images: of Wave Hub and the cable under construction can be
downloaded at
www.2daymedia.com/fotoweb/linkgen.asp?linkid=WaveHub1_201041131257283
Film: of Wave Hub and the subsea cable under construction is
available here: www.youtube.com/southwestrda
You can follow Wave Hub’s progress on Twitter (@wavehub).
The South West RDA works for and promotes a modern, stronger and
more resilient economy across South West England. Our work involves
creating better jobs, successful businesses, more prosperous
cities, towns and villages within an economy that uses less carbon
and will still be thriving in 20, 50 and 100 years time.
Wave Hub is a major marine renewables infrastructure project
that will create an electrical ‘socket’ on the seabed in some 50
metres of water around 16kms (10 miles) off the coast of Cornwall
in South West England and connected to the National Grid via a
subsea cable. Groups of wave energy devices will be connected to
Wave Hub and float on or just below the surface of the sea to
assess how well they work and how much power they generate before
being commercially produced and deployed. There are four berths
available at Wave Hub, each covering two square kilometres. Wave
Hub will have an initial maximum capacity of 20MW (enough
electricity to power approximately 7,000 homes) but has been
designed with the potential to scale up to 50MW in the future. The
first wave energy devices are expected to be deployed in 2011.
Legal agreements have been signed with leading renewable energy
company Ocean Power Technologies Limited to take the first berth at
Wave Hub using its PowerBuoy wave energy converter. Images of
PowerBuoy can be downloaded at www.flickr.com/photos/southwestengland.
Discussions are ongoing with other device developers.
JDR Cable Systems Ltd has manufactured the armoured 25 km (16
mile) 33kV cable and hub assembly for Wave Hub at its factory in
Hartlepool in a contract worth £7.6 million. The cable weighs 1,300
tonnes. The hub weights around 12 tonnes and will sit on the
seabed. It will split the main cable linking it to the National
Grid on shore into four 300m cables to which groups of wave energy
devices can be attached and monitored for how they perform. CTC
Marine Projects is carrying out the installation of the hub and
subsea cable on the seabed.
Powermann Ltd of Poole in Dorset has been appointed to handle
the £1 million onshore electrical works that will connect Wave Hub
to the UK’s National Grid network, and a new electricity
sub-station at Hayle is being built by Dawnus Construction.
In Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly the Convergence Programmes
are made up of European Regional Development Fund (£347 million)
and European Social Fund (£153 million). Convergence Programmes
will run until 2013 and follow the successful Objective One
Programme and prior to that Objective 5b. For further information
see: http://www.convergencecornwall.com/.
Convergence helpline telephone: 0800 0280120.