Subsea cables work in punishing conditions far offshore, and require rigorous testing to ensure they can remain operational for their entire lifespan – which is expected to be around 25-40 years
Market-leading cable protection specialist Tekmar Energy designs, manufactures and supplies a range of umbilicals and flexible systems that provides significant lifetime savings for offshore wind owner/operators.
The Catapult’s world-leading facilities enabled Tekmar to conduct five weeks of product testing, demonstration trials, and testing of installation techniques on the County Durham-based company’s TekLink® cable protection and TekTube® J-tube replacement systems.
The National Renewable Energy Centre has become the go-to testing ground for the subsea and marine renewables industry. Its facilities include three large dry docks and a simulated seabed, allowing technology developers to recreate, in a controlled environment, the conditions found on an offshore wind farm.
Tekmar was able to carry out full scale demonstrations in a controlled dry and wet environment without the added time, cost and difficulties of going offshore. This proved essential in helping them to demonstrate its unique technology to a number of key offshore wind farm developers and EPIC contractors interested in deploying the systems on forthcoming wind farm projects. The real-life demonstrations, which were witnessed by Ørsted, TechnipFMC, Cape Wind, Enerco, Boskalis, Van Oord, Siemens and Caldwell Marine, allowed Tekmar to prove how its product is making a key industry contribution to reducing risk and installation time, reducing costs as well as raising the awareness of its technology to key clients
Industrial Advantage
Less than three months after completion of the trials, Tekmar was awarded a major contract by offshore cable installation contractor VBMS to supply its newly-launched TekTube® to the Westermeerwind offshore wind farm in the Netherlands.
In May 2018, the firm won two major orders supporting Van Oord on the Deutsche Bucht and BorWin 3 farms. And in July 2018, Ørsted selected Tekmar to provide cable protection systems for the 752MW Borssele 1&2 offshore wind complex in the Dutch North Sea – helped, in part, due to the “unique industrial advantage” provided by the Catapult’s “high-quality” facilities.
“It is essential to fully test our products and allow our clients and their partners to familiarise themselves and have input into the design and installation procedures in a controlled environment.
“Developing and proving our products prior to field installation is a key component in maintaining our leadership and this, combined with the ability to access high quality facilities such as the Catapult’s in Blyth, gives us a unique industrial advantage.
“Innovative, technological improvements such as our cable protection systems can help towards creating a step-change in electrical cable technology which will help to minimise costs in the industry.” – James Ritchie, CEO, Tekmar Energy
