Subsea power cable installation specialists VBMS and High Voltage engineering company EDS have launched their Cable Integrity Solutions including the “Prepare to Repair” framework which is said to allow cable repairs to be carried out up to 70% faster.
The model promotes critical preparations to be carried out upfront, ensuring that if a cable fails, arrangements are in place and the repair process can be started immediately, massively minimising downtime, VBMS said.
EDS and VBMS discussed the importance of being prepared for potential cable faults during a forum on cable faults held in London last week.
Ryan Henderson, Group Director of EDS said: “Now seemed like an appropriate time for us to set up a forum to collaborate and share the valuable knowledge that we have within the sector. VBMS and EDS have combined their expertise and experience to offer an immediate solution through our Prepare to Repair framework, but ultimately to gather expertise from the wider industry to further develop more long-term cable integrity solutions.”
The forum saw industry experts from CIEG, CODAN, Equitix and Vattenfall give their view on the challenges the industry is facing and potential ways forward.
There was also a demonstration of a cable monitoring system that has the potential to change the way that cables are protected going forward, VBMS said.
“To ensure the long-term sustainability of the industry it is critical that we share best practices moving forward. There have been more subsea cable faults than anyone could have predicted and as an industry we need to come together, get the issues out into the open and come up with short and long term solutions in order to reduce the levelised cost of energy by increasing availability and reliability of cable systems,” Jack Wattel , Director Commerce of VBMS, said.