Onshore cable installation done for Viking Link

Prysmian has completed the installation of the UK land cable section for the 1.4 GW Viking Link interconnector between the UK and Denmark.

The team completed the installation of the 135-kilometer cable section between the converter station and the landfall located on a beach in Lincolnshire at the beginning of February.

This allows for a high-voltage intermediate test of the entire onshore section to be carried out. Upon completion, Prysmian’s jointers will install the sea/land transition joint of both poles connecting the UK onshore section with the offshore section of the interconnector.

At the Danish landfall, Prysmian will install in spring the sea/land transition joints of both poles connecting the submarine section to the Danish land cable section running from the landfall to the convert station located at Revsing in South Jutland.

In April, Leonardo da Vinci will start laying the two remaining offshore campaigns installing in bundle the last 380 kilometers of submarine cables needed to close the link in the middle of the North Sea, expected to be completed by early July.

To achieve this, the crew will first recover the two cable ends that arrive mid-sea from UK shore, lift the cables on the deck and joint them with the new sections of cables. Leonardo da Vinci will then lay the cables in bundle configuration up to the cable route location where the ends of the cables arriving from the Danish shore were previously laid.

At that stage in order to close the link, the vessel will recover on the deck the two ends of the cables arriving from the Danish shore and execute an “Omega joint” with the cables arriving from UK shore. Once completed, the Omega joint will be deployed on the seabed. Then, everything will be ready to carry out the end-to-end high-voltage test of the Viking Link cable system.

According to Giuseppe Cardamone, Prysmian Project Director on Viking Link, work on the world’s longest power cable interconnector is running on schedule to meet end-2023 delivery despite external challenges including the Covid-19 pandemic and raw material shortages.

“The installation of the submarine cables started in 2021, when the first two installation campaigns were installed by Prysmian’s owned cable laying vessels Cable Enterprise and Leonardo da Vinci. In 2022 three additional offshore sections were installed by the two vessels reaching an overall length of 870 km of submarine cables installed and protected,” said Cardamone.