The Carbon Trust's Offshore Wind Accelerator (OWA) has launched a competition to support the development of 66kV offshore wind cables for deployment at UK Round 3 projects. At least two cable suppliers will be awarded funding of up to £300,000 (€350,000).
Moving from 33kV to 66KV cables would mean fewer substations, reduced system losses and lower overall cable requirements. OWA developers – DONG Energy, E.ON, Mainstream Renewable Power, RWE Innogy, ScottishPower Renewables, SSE Renewables, Statkraft, Statoil and Vattenfall – all see 66 kV as the optimal intra-array voltage.They will use the information gathered from the competition to inform future cable procurement decisions.
Phil De Villiers, the Carbon Trust's head of offshore wind, said: "Developing the next generation of cables will provide a much-needed boost to the economics of offshore wind power and alone can cut costs by around 1.5%. We've designed the competition to incentivise cable manufacturers that deliver a qualified product as soon as possible so they can be put to sea by 2015."
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