‘Hydromole’ deployed for trenching and cable burial
Trenching and cabling work at the UK wind farm, which has not been identified, has been carried out by firms under the OEG Renewables umbrella for cabling project manager Nexans.
Seajet’s ‘Hydromole’ is an all-electric controlled flow excavation (E-CFE) tool that its owners say ‘provides a step-change in performance, efficiency and versatility in both shallow water and deep-water excavation and trenching applications’.
The advanced control system is built into Hydromole monitors and optimises performance in real time, maximising project up-time, says Seajet.
Other benefits include reduced CO2 emissions, eliminating the risk of high-pressure, high-volume oil spills into the marine environment and reduced noise pollution.
E-CFE operators are accommodated in a 16ft control kiosk, where they access operating system information, sonar images and product tracker information displayed on a video wall. From here they can control the power, which comes from a 20ft ISO power container.
Rated to 500kW, the power container delivers the required supply and finite control of the excavation tooling on the Hydromole.
A buoyant deep-water grade umbilical cable supplies power and communications to the Hydromole, with all-electric tugger winches providing the necessary positioning and stability of the equipment deployed subsea.
The equipment is deployed from an ultra-shallow draft multi-cat vessel, which has limited deck space but enough to accommodate it.
“The project offered challenges with regards to the operational conditions; presenting tight weather windows to conduct work within, and aggressively fluctuating tidal ranges,” says Seajet. “The team demonstrated that the Hydromole system delivers up to 100% more power than any legacy hydraulic CFE systems currently on the market, even when presented with some of the most challenging conditions considered for this type of seabed intervention works.”
“The Seajet team has more than 20 years of operational experience with traditional hydraulic CFE systems, and we have never seen a CFE system deliver such high performance results as this, which was particularly impressive given the challenging shallow water environment with a high tidal range,” said Seajet managing director Faisel Chaudry.
“Seajet is just the latest technology company that we have invested in and nurtured with the intent of developing a stronger UK supply chain creating highly skilled jobs and cutting edge British-designed and built innovative solutions for the offshore renewables sector,” said
David Carr, chief commercial officer of OEG Energy Group and director of OEG Renewables’ Cables division.
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