Subsea Cable Defect at Anholt OWF

An error has been reported in the submarine cable connecting the DONG Energy-operated 400MW Anholt offshore wind farm to the grid on land.

The citizens on Anholt lost power for 31 minutes, until the island’s emergency supply was up and running.

According to Energinet.dk,  It is still too early to say what the cause of the error is, the company and its partners have, during the weekend, localized an error to be on the submarine cable near the substation at sea that connects the offshore wind turbines and submarine cable.

Nothing indicates that fault has been caused by a ship or an anchor. Two vessels will be mobilised to carry out the repair. One ship will uncover the cable while the second will lift the cable to the surface and perform the repair.

“It is much more difficult and lengthy to carry out repairs at sea cables than on land cables. We expect that the repair will last about three weeks. We need two periods lasting several days with fairly calm weather. It could last more than three weeks before the wind farm can again export power,” says Per Hylle, Manager of Maintenance Jutland, Energinet.dk.

Anholt cable was also affected last year by an error in the part of the cable that is buried in the ground, which caused the cable to be out of service for seven days. Energinet.dk has in this regard paid 9,167,090.95 dollars in compensation to DONG Energy, according to wind data and market prices.

The submarine cable is supplied by NKT Cables, while land cable is supplied by Silec Cable.