EDS HV Management has secured €1.3m from the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme to help it roll out a new tool to identify and locate subsea cable faults at offshore wind farms.
The high voltage engineering specialist recently completed initial tests of the system at Innogy’s 576MW Gwynt Y Mor offshore wind farm off North Wales.
The new kit, dubbed ‘Cable Sentry’, deploys distributed acoustic sensing technology to try and speed up the time taken to locate faults, EDS HV said.
The UK company will use the new funding to finance large-scale consumer trials of the hardware before marketing it to clients.
“A proactive strategy to repair cables offers the opportunity to create operational and cost efficiencies,” said Balfour Beatty development director John Sinclair, who oversaw Cable Sentry’s initial test’s at Gwynt Y Mor.
Image: Cable Sentry underwent initial tests at Innogy’s Gwynt Y Mor offshore wind farm (Innogy)
EU backs subsea wire fault kit
By EBS