AgileTek, a UK engineering consultancy, has completed a multi-phase study on subsea power cables for the Walney Extension offshore wind farm.
The study involved over 12 months of analysis and engineering work to quantify and eliminate risks to subsea power cables on the 660MW project, located in the Irish Sea, around 19 km west of the Walney Island coast in Cumbria.
AgileTek evaluated inter-array and export cable loads, and mitigated risk during the installation, normal operation and extreme storm phases of the cable life-cycle. The work involved local structural modelling of the power cable as well as over 55,000 separate computer simulations of the subsea power cables subjected to the Walney Extension site conditions. AgileTek carried out analysis by using its AELCloud scalable analysis platform.
Steven Rossiter , Managing Director at AgileTek: “This project reflects DONG Energy’s continued dedication to rigorous engineering on their offshore windfarms. Our engineers worked closely with the Walney Extension project team to deliver a comprehensive suite of engineering. We firmly believe that conducting this level of analysis at a relatively early stage will reduce the risk of subsea power cable failures throughout the life of the windfarm.”