First US-made offshore wind export cable installed at Orsted-Eversource's South Fork
High voltage cable was made by Nexans at its refurbished plant in South Carolina under agreement to supply 1,000km to the developers
Joint venture (JV) partners Orsted and New England utility Eversource installed and successfully tested the first US-made offshore wind export cable at their 132MW South Fork array, a milestone for the challenged US supply chain.
The 68-mile (110 km), three-phase 138kV high voltage alternating current (HVAC) line was manufactured by France’s Nexans out of its plant in South Carolina for the project, located 55km off Montauk Point at the tip of Long Island. Power will flow to the onshore grid there.
“The completion of the work at South Fork Wind Farm is a monumental step in the energy transition in the United States,” said Pascal Radue, EVP of Nexans' generation & transmission business group.
“New York's commitment to supply up to 9GW of offshore wind power to the state by 2030 is an incredible opportunity and we are looking forward to continuing work in the state and in the broader region,” he added.
South Fork is the US’ second commercial-scale project fully approved and under construction. The project is slated to install seven to nine of its 12 Siemens Gamesa SG11.0-200DD turbines before the end of this year, with full installation and commissioning expected early 2024.
Project installation is by Dutch marine engineering firm Boskalis.
Nexans supplied and spliced the two export cable lengths running from South Fork's offshore substation to shore, performed the transition joint between the export and land cables, and installed GIS terminations on the offshore substation.
The cable manufacturing contract is the first under a framework supply agreement for up to 1,000km of underwater HV cables in the US by 2027 agreed between Nexans and Orsted Wind Power North America, which has multiple projects along the US east coast from Maryland to Massachusetts, some with joint venture partners.
Nexans confirmed it is currently manufacturing the cable for Orsted-Eversource JV’s 704MW Revolution Wind Farm split between Connecticut and Rhode Island, with installation scheduled for 2024.
The news comes a week after Orsted announced the cancellation of 2.25GW of capacity for New Jersey, dealing a blow to the budding US offshore wind supply chain.
(Copyright)