Blyth Offshore Demonstrator

As part of its 2017–2018 works on the Blyth Offshore Demonstrator export and inter-array cable system, Boskalis Subsea Cables performed termination and testing of approximately 14 km of 66 kV subsea cables and accessories to verify the integrity of the transmission links between the offshore arrays and the onshore grid connection at Cambois Bay.

By 2018, Boskalis had completed the shore-end landing of the Blyth Offshore Demonstrator’s 66 kV export and inter-array cables at Cambois Bay, pulling the cables ashore to transition joint bays near the shoreline that link into the 1.2 km onshore cable route to the onshore substation on the former Blyth Power Station site.

During the 2017 construction campaign, Boskalis Subsea Cables carried out offshore site preparation for the Blyth Offshore Demonstrator’s 66 kV export and inter-array cables, including a pre-lay survey and two pre-lay grapnel runs along the approximately 14 km cable routes off Cambois Bay to clear and prepare the seabed prior to cable installation.

In 2017, as part of EDF Energy Renewables’ Blyth Offshore Demonstrator project, Boskalis Subsea Cables began laying and burying around 14 km of 66 kV export and inter-array cables using its cable lay vessel Ndurance equipped with an HD3 plough, initiating installation of the subsea transmission link between the offshore arrays and the landfall at Cambois Bay.

EDF Energy Renewables indicated that, following installation of the concrete gravity-based foundations and the laying of special 66 kV inter-array and export cables by VBMS to connect the Blyth Offshore Demonstrator turbines to a new onshore substation at Blyth, the turbines were expected to start generating power by the end of 2017, marking first electricity export via the new 66 kV transmission link. The export system comprises 66 kV inter-array and export cables transmitting power from the offshore site approximately 6.5 km off the Northumberland coast to the onshore substation.