NextGeo bags interconnector, offshore wind cable route survey contracts with Prysmian

Prysmian has awarded two contracts to Next Geosolutions (NextGeo), one of which is in the Dutch offshore wind market, where NextGeo will carry out export cable route surveys for the IJmuiden Ver Alpha and Nederwiek 1 offshore wind sites.

The second contract NextGeo secured with Prysmian is for the Bay of Biscay interconnection project, an HVDC cable system that will link coastal areas of Spain and France. Under this contract, NextGeo will carry out route preparation activities between 2025 and 2027, including boulder removal, pre-lay grapnel run (PLGR), installation of protective mattresses, and a pre-lay survey.

The two contracts are valued at around €20 million.

Under the contract for the Dutch offshore wind sites, the Italy-based offshore energy service provider will conduct surveys in both offshore and nearshore areas, along the routes where export cables will be installed to connect the future offshore wind farms IJmuiden Ver Alpha and Nederwiek 1 to the grid on land.

Work under this contract is scheduled to take place between 2026 and 2027, and will entail geophysical and unexploded ordnance (UXO) surveys to acquire high-quality data and information that will support the final design phase of the cable installation.

The Dutch transmission system operator (TenneT) contracted Prysmian for the export cable work in 2023. Under the contract with TenneT, Prysmian is responsible for delivering 525 kV XLPE HVDC cable connections for the IJmuiden Ver Alpha and Nederwiek 1 sites, whose onshore landing point is at Sloegebied in Zeeland. 

At the beginning of this year, TenneT signed a grid realisation agreement with the Noordzeker consortium, comprising the pension fund ABP, pension investor APG, and SSE, which is developing the 2 GW IJmuiden Ver Alpha offshore wind farm, for which it won the project development tender in June 2024.

The offshore wind farm tender for the first phase of Nederwiek 1 area, Nederwiek 1-A, is expected to be launched in October this year. Next Geosolutions already worked in the Nederwiek area under a contract with TenneT in 2024 and has been conducting UXO survey activities since the beginning of this year as well, under a contract awarded by TenneT in January.

At the end of 2024, TenneT also chose NextGeo for surveys in the Dutch waters where new offshore wind farms are planned to be built. In December, the TSO awarded NextGeo with a contract worth approximately EUR 43 million for extensive geophysical and geotechnical activities, both offshore and nearshore, in the 4 GW Doordewind zone.