The Carbon Trust has picked five winners of a dynamic export cable competition within its Floating Wind Joint Industry Project (Floating Wind JIP).
The successful companies are Norway’s Aker Solutions, Japan’s Furukawa Electric, Greece’s Hellenic Cables, JDR Cable Systems in the UK and Zhongtian Technology Submarine Cable in China.
The first phase of the project will conclude in March 2020 and the results could help to “inform subsequent project phases to support the deployment of dynamic export cables across the industry,” according to the Carbon Trust.
Carbon Trust offshore wind manager Rory Shanahan said: “We are delighted with the response we got from the industry and we are looking forward to working with the five competition winners.
“The lack of dynamic export cables has been identified as a hurdle that needs to be overcome by industry to ensure the commercialisation of floating wind farms, and we are excited to begin work to ensure that this technology is ready in time for commercial floating wind projects.”
BPP Cables is supporting the competition, which aims to ensure that this necessary technology is a viable option for developers for commercial floating wind projects within the next five to 10 years.
Drawing on the expertise of existing offshore wind cable suppliers, as well as tapping into the oil and gas supply chain, the competition funding will support the design, initial testing and development of dynamic cables ranging from 130kV to 250kV to enable the efficient transmission of power from floating wind turbines to shore.
The Floating Wind JIP aims to accelerate and support the development of commercial-scale floating wind farms and is a collaboration between industry partners that include EnBW, Engie, Eon, Equinor, Innogy, Orsted, Shell and Vattenfall, with Scottish Government support.
The Carbon Trust and the twelve Floating Wind JIP developers will be supporting and collaborating with these cable suppliers to support the development of their cables.