Prysmian hits dynamic cables milestone

Prysmian Group has completed the pre-termination phase for the dynamic cables destined for a floating offshore wind farm off the coast of France – said to be the company’s first turnkey project of a dynamic cables system for a floating wind farm.

Prysmian announced the completion of the dynamic cables’ pre-termination phase for the Provence Grand Large floating wind farm, a key step that involved pre-installing dynamic cable accessories as well as innovative electrical and optical terminations onto each dynamic cable end that will enable fast and easy installation, disconnection and reconnection on the wind turbine floaters.

The pre-termination works took place at the company’s dynamic cable center of excellence in Nordenham, Germany, this summer. It is said to represent a milestone for Prysmian as this is the first time it is delivering dynamic 66 kV cables with innovative accessories that can “plug in and out”.

“This is an innovative development because it allows us to connect and disconnect easily, in a seamless way, which was not previously possible,” said Alessandro Pistonesi, Senior Project Manager at Prysmian.

“The floating wind industry is at its beginning, but we can foresee that disconnection will be part of normal maintenance cycles. So, we have redesigned our cable system package to respond to this request and to provide ease of management and handling for the end user.”

Provence Grand Large consists of three 8.4 MW turbines, the last of which was installed at the beginning of October at the site located about 17 kilometers from the coastal town of Port-Saint-Louis-du-Rhône near Marseilles in a water depth of about 100 meters.

Prysmian will connect the three turbines installed on floating foundations to the public electricity transmission grid via a 21-kilometer submarine cable and a 9-kilometer underground cable.

Once completed in early 2024, the floating offshore wind farm will provide 24 MW of renewable energy to more than 45,000 people in France.

This pilot project is being led by EDF Renewables, Enbridge and CPP Investments MC. 

“In the dynamic system, the floating turbines are only connected by cables which can be disconnected. If the offshore wind generator has to be towed into port, to do heavy maintenance, because there was damage to the generator for whatever reason, our cable can be unplugged so the offshore generator is free to be moved,” Pistonesi said.

“We pre-installed the dynamic accessories into our factory so that when we pull the cable with the accessories already installed on the floating structure, we just plug it in. It’s a very short operation.”