New Submarine Cable Between Borkum and Mainland Ready

The submarine power cable for the new link between the North Sea island of Borkum and the mainland grid is ready for use: Norddeutsche Seekabelwerke GmbH handed it over to EWE NETZ GmbH in Nordenham yesterday.

The 25-km-long medium-voltage submarine power cable is currently being loaded onto the work pontoon of the construction company Bohlen & Doyen Bauunternehmung GmbH. The 33-kV submarine cable contains three 120-mm2 power cores plus two glass-fiber elements for transmitting data.

For the submarine cable, a new route has been prepared. In the area of the dikes in Manslagt and on Borkum, EWE NETZ had in 2012 performed the requisite horizontal drilling work and installed the appropriate conduits, into which the cable will now (as from mid-May starting from Manslagt) be pulled. Between the conduits, the cable will be laid in the seabed at a depth of one and a half to three meters. The submarine cable will reduce the load on existing systems and assure the continuing dependability of the island’s power supply.

Can-do partner for a rather special construction project

To quote Dr. Günther Schöffner, Managing Director of NSW: “We are completing EWE’s order right on time, and are delighted that with our products we are making a contribution towards assuring the region’s power supply on a sustainable and eco-friendly basis. This is an important consideration for us as a German company and not least as a neighbor of the Tidelands which are a World Heritage Site.” At its facility in Nordenham, NSW can tap into long years of experience in manufacturing submarine cables, and operates on a fiercely contested, fast-moving market.

“For the new submarine cable link to Borkum, in the shape of NSW we had a can-do, dependable, responsible and customer-focused partner from the region, who worked with us to ensure that all the requirements for the submarine cable were met to optimum effect”, to quote an appreciative Heiko Fastje, Managing Director of EWE NETZ. “EWE NETZ has a lot of experience with power supply systems for islands, and has acquired plenty of specialized competences in this field”, he adds.

“NSW met all the scheduling and quality-related requirements for the cable. Its completion was a key deadline for the overall project,” confirms Thorsten-Peter Müller, Project Manager at EWE NETZ.

Everyone involved praised the professional synergies achieved between NSW, EWE NETZ and the construction company Bohlen & Doyen from Wiesmoor, which will be laying the cable.

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Press Release, May 01, 2013