A cable lay barge, carrying cables manufactured by Prysmian for the connection of Butendiek and Deutsche Bucht offshore wind farms in Germany, flipped over and sank on July 3.
AMT Explorer , towed by Red Husky , was on its way from Arco Felice in Naples to Bremerhaven, when the incident occurred 50 nautical miles southwest of Sardinia, according to Italian media.
The barge, along with the cables worth EUR 28 million, is being recovered by Smit Salvage. The Butendiek offshore wind farm will be connected to the grid through the SylWin1 project, while BorWin2 grid connection will transfer power from Deutsche Bucht wind farm.
UPDATE:
Cornelia Junge, TenneT’s Communications Officer for Offshore Projects told Offshore WIND : “We laid the first cable for Butendiek, so if the wind farm will erect their wind turbines, the half of them could feed in electricity via this first cable for sure, so we hope to have the second cable there before all wind turbines are erected.”
She added that TenneT will now discuss with Prysmian about further steps and that the companies will work on a solution to avoid projects’ delays.
“The information we received from the project Deutsche Bucht about the construction site schedule will allow us to reproduce the cable – so they will probably have less problems with a later delivery of the cable,” Ms Junge said.