Seagreen export cable installation about to begin

Nexans is about to begin the installation of the first of three export cables at the Seagreen offshore wind project in Scotland.

According to the latest AIS data, cable laying vessel (CLV) Nexans Aurora arrived at the project site on 18 January.

Operations will commence at the Carnoustie landfall site, the export cable will be floated ashore where it will be pulled into the landfall cable protection pipe and terminated.

It will then be surface laid through the Seagreen export cable corridor to the offshore substation platform. Once at the substation, the cable will be pulled into the platform and will be trenched at a later date.

Nexans Aurora will transport the cable to the site and lay it between the landfall site and substation platform. During pull-in operations at the substation, crew transfer vessel (CTV) Manor Venture will deploy teams to the platform.

Three guard vessels will be deployed to guard the surface laid cable and will arrive at different dates which are to be confirmed. 

Seagreen will consist of 114 Vestas V164-10.0 MW turbines situated around 27 kilometers off the Angus coast.

At 1.1 GW, Seagreen is Scotland’s largest renewable energy project and one of the biggest private investments in Scottish infrastructure. The £3 billion wind farm is a joint venture between SSE Renewables (49%) and TotalEnergies (51%).

Nexans won a contract in June 2020 to supply and install three 65-kilometer offshore export cables and three 20-kilometer onshore export cables for the project.