Boskalis Inks Hornsea Two Cable Deal

Boskalis has won a contract for the offshore export cable installation at Ørsted’s Hornsea Project Two offshore wind farm in the UK.

Under the contract worth more than EUR 100 million, Boskalis will install three export cable circuits with a total length of approximately 380km.

The project scope includes the preparation of the offshore export cable route, comprising geophysical survey, boulder clearance and seabed leveling through dredging, as well as cable installation and protection.

The three 130km long export cables will connect the offshore substation to the onshore substation by means of a 300m long horizontal directional drilling, crossing the sea defense of Horseshoe Point, Boskalis said.

According to the company, a variety of in-house specialist services and assets including a trailing suction hopper dredger, a geophysical survey vessel and multiple cable-laying vessels will be deployed.

Boskalis has also invested in a new multi-mode plough for the pre-lay trenching and backfilling. It will be pulled by the recently added construction vessel Boka Falcon.

The project is expected to commence later this year with completion scheduled for late 2021.

French cable maker Nexans will provide 200km of a 245kV subsea export cable system for the nearshore section of Hornsea Project Two.

The 1.4GW project will comprise up to 165 Siemens Gamesa 8MW turbines located approximately 89km from the Yorkshire coast. It will be the world’s largest offshore wind farm once commissioned in 2022.