Fugro's 18-meter Blue Eclipse uncrewed surface vessel (USV) is carrying out an environmental survey for the 1.4 GW Viking Link high-voltage direct current (DC) electricity link between the British and Danish transmission systems, said to be the world's longest interconnector.
According to the National Grid's Notice to Mariners (NtM) issued on October 8, Blue Eclipse was scheduled to start the operations on October 22 and continue until November 10, subject to prevailing weather conditions and work progress.
The environmental camera survey is being performed in the North Sea from the nearshore limit north of the Viking Link cable, northeast of Mablethorpe, Lincolnshire, and extending offshore to the UK/Netherlands border.
The survey works shall provide seabed imagery along 193 selected 100m transects along the route.
Blue Eclipse is being operated from a remote operations center (ROC) in Aberdeen.
Viking Link is approximately 765 kilometers long and connects the Bicker Fen substation in Lincolnshire and the Revsing substation in southern Jutland, Denmark. The interconnector was officially inaugurated in April 2024.