General – Cable Installation
CorPower Ocean and Maersk Supply Service have successfully installed a 6.2km subsea export cable off the coast of northern Portugal to energise the flagship HiWave-5 Project.
The 100-tonne cable was installed using the Maersk Achiever vessel and will provide power and data connection from an on-land substation in Aguçadoura to the wave energy demonstration site 5.5km offshore.
Now connected to the national grid of Portugal, the site will initially accommodate the recently unveiled CorPower C4 Wave Energy Converter (WEC) which later form part of a larger four-system array, and one of the world’s first grid-connected wave farms.
CorPower Ocean Marine Operations Manager Robert Argo said the cable lay process marks another significant milestone for the HiWave-5 Project, which aims to introduce certified and warrantied WEC products to the market.
CorPower is now gearing up for the arrival of the C4 PTO (Power Take Off) system, which has completed a rigorous one-year dry test programme in Sweden. Once transported the PTO will be integrated with a composite hull, which was custom built at CorPower Ocean’s Portuguese base, in Viana do Castelo – home to its innovative Composite Hull Development Programme.
Having successfully completed tests to verify power conductors and fibre communication cores, the CorPower C4 WEC will later be fused to the cable through a quick-connect interface located at the anchor-head. While providing power connection to feed electricity to shore through the 7.2kV cable it will also deliver high speed communication to the wave farm through fibre optic cores.
