Aquatera completes EMEC cable tests

The final phase of the £2.4m Tidal Array Cabling Solution project has been completed in Orkney.

The project, funded by Scottish Enterprise, was launched in December 2013 to develop and demonstrate efficient methods of locating, securing, protecting and retrieving cables for tidal energy arrays.

The first of phase was completed last year when a team led by energy and environmental consultancy Aquatera deployed a 50-metre rigid ‘U-tube’ cabling protection structure – designed by Jee – at the European Marine Energy Centre’s Shapinsay Sound tidal test site in Orkney.

The second and final phase of the project was completed over the winter of 2015 at a specially licensed site also in Orkney.

The project tested over 10 different technological and procedural innovations during a set of cable laying trials. 

The innovations included the type of cable lay vessel, the decking arrangements, the mooring arrangement and materials, surveying techniques, the use of a novel cable locating and protection system and the proving of cost effective cable layout and cable deployment and recovery techniques.

Aquatera has been supported on the project by Green Marine, which provided a specialised GM700L heavy lift barge.

The barge was adapted for use as a cable-laying platform using a movable modular decking system installed between the barge hulls.

Other contractors in second phase of the project included JGC (fabrication), Lupus (structural design) TTI (mooring analysis) and Orcades Marine (procedures and onsite services) with Roving Eye, Sula and Triscom providing deployment support services.

Aquatera head of offshore technology Daniel Wise said: “The results that we have achieved within just one year have been outstanding and give us real confidence that we can now further develop an approach to cabling design, cable laying and cable management that will transform the economics and reliability of tidal energy.”

Image: subsea cables at EMEC test site (EMEC)