Wave Hub on course for summer deployment
The Wave Hub which will sit on the seabed 10 miles off the Cornish coast as part of the Wave Hub project, the world's largest test site for wave energy technology. Photo by Richard Rayner, North News & Photos Ltd.
Wave Hub, the pioneering marine energy project, is on course to be deployed this summer with fabrication of sub-sea cables and the hub itself nearing completion.
Wave Hub will create the world’s largest test site for wave energy technology by building a grid connected socket on the seabed, 10 miles off the coast of Cornwall UK, to which wave power devices can be connected and their performance evaluated.
The £42 million project has been developed by the South West RDA (Regional Development Agency) and is a cornerstone of its strategy to develop a world class marine energy industry in South West England.
Hartlepool UK based JDR Cable Systems is constructing the armoured 25km subsea cable that will connect Wave Hub to the National Grid, and the hub structure that will sit on the seabed.
JDR is well advanced with the cable manufacture, a process which involves twisting together copper and fibre optic cables and covering with two layers of steel armouring and an outer sheath.
When complete, the 1,300 ton cable will be spooled directly onto a cable laying vessel from JDR’s deepwater quayside facility at Hartlepool Dock. The company is also making four 300m ‘tails’ that will connect wave energy devices on or just below the surface of the sea back to Wave Hub.
Work is also well underway on the hub assembly. This is a rigid steel structure which is the size of a van (around 2m high and about 6m long) that will sit on the seabed in 50m of water and be covered in several metres of rock.
It will provide a connection between the main cable from the shore and the tails leading to the wave energy devices, and will weigh around 12 tons when completed. A connection block inside will be filled with resin to ensure it remains watertight and the whole structure is designed to last at least 25 years.
Guy Lavender, Wave Hub’s general manager at the South West RDA said, ‘After seven years of planning it’s hugely satisfying to see the cable and hub actually taking shape. We’re on course for deployment this summer and extensive testing will take place before we welcome our first wave energy devices at Wave Hub, which we expect in 2011.
‘The announcement in March by the Crown Estate of the first commercial licenses for wave energy deployment off the north coast of Scotland makes Wave Hub more relevant than ever because we can provide the industry with a grid connected test facility on a scale not seen before, that it can use before commercial deployment.’
Meanwhile onshore work for Wave Hub continues with the construction of an electricity substation at Hayle on the north Cornwall coast. The six month project
includes the installation of more than £1m of electrical equipment, including a monitoring system for wave energy developers to measure how much power their devices produce.
It follows the completion in February of the first phase of work to drill a 200m duct through sand dunes at Hayle, where Wave Hub’s subsea cable will come ashore. It will be linked to onshore cabling threaded through the duct and connected to the new sub-station.
Wave Hub is being funded with £12.5m from the South West RDA, £20m from the European Regional Development Fund Convergence Programme and £9.5m from the UK government.
An independent economic impact assessment has calculated that Wave Hub could create 1,800 jobs and inject £560m into the UK economy over 25 years. Almost 1,000 of these jobs and £332m could be generated in South West England.
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