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Significant savings are achievable from moving certain offshore cabling tasks to an onshore location, DONG Energy's Tue Keller said yesterday.

Keller outlined the advantages of onshore pre-terminating of inter-array cables, at “uåX˜äŠÊ˜·³Ç's offshore cable installation, engineering and maintenance conference. This involves 'finishing' cables onshore, for rapid connection at the project site.

Using a 45-turbine project in the Borkum area of the German North Sea, located 240km offshore in water depths of 29-31m as an example, Keller said cost savings of DKK45m (€5.9m) "plus spin-offs" could be achieved. The cost reduction would be achieved from onshore pre-termination of the project's 38 inter-array cables.

Moreover, the time saved could amount to as much as a month, allowing for earlier energisation and revenue-raising generation, he added.

"The concept is flexible" and equally applicable to projects based on monopile foundations or jackets, he said. The technique also reduces a project's health and safety risks and offshore crew requirements.

DONG has a team dedicated to developing cost-saving techniques for offshore wind projects and has announced a target of €100/MWh by 2020.

* In other news, DONG confirmed earlier this week that construction of the 400MW Anholt offshore wind farm has reached the half-way mark.