Singapore-based engineering firm G8 Subsea has recently completed the landing and pull-in of the world’s first submarine cable for offshore solar power and data.
The Northern cable landing, situated at Woodlands, Singapore will transmit data back to mainland with over 5MW of clean renewable energy back to the network infrastructure on the mainland.
G8 used its proprietary cable landing protection system – Cable Protection Duct System (CPDS) to facilitate the cable landing process.
According to G8, its CPDS reduces the cost of cable landings by a factor of 10 by mitigating the use of horizontal directional drilling methods.
The system is applicable to both telecommunications and high voltage subsea cables and ensures the long term safety of the cable on both sea and land portions of the cable landing.
“We are looking towards greater cost effectiveness and security to network connectivity into Singapore. 2020 marks a year of transformation to renewable energy and the future of Singapore 5G networks,” said Gerald Tan G8 managing director.
G8 Subsea trials Autonomous Underwater Monitoring and Maintenance System for Offshore Floating Solar In collaboration with BEE X Singapore team, G8 also carried out trials to monitor critical mooring points and subsea cable components of an offshore floating solar plant in Woodlands Singapore.
The efficiency of data collection and condition monitoring of floating solar plant and subsea cables is an important aspect of the trials as each floating solar system and floating platform has multiple subsea linkages and components subjected to the rigors of subsea currents, marine growth, erosion and stresses due to waves.
As part of achieving autonomous operation and maintenance, the direction is to drive efficient data collection and high resolution condition monitoring continuously and remotely to ensure the highest safety and efficiency in floating solar and offshore wind maintenance.
“We are benchmarking various remote operating vehicle (ROV) and autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) technologies.
“Traditionally d ivers carry out this task , but the next steps is to bring the maintenance service further to achieve full autonomy and reliable self charging capabilities to deliver cost effective maintenance strategies for floating solar & offshore wind,” added Gerald Tan .
In September this year, G8 also delivered the world’s first modular floating substation designed for the future expansion of offshore floating solar plants at industrial scale on water.
G8 says that the modular floating transformer platform (FTP) can hold stable and exact positioning of up to 20MW capacity of solar plant equipment and power inverters under marine conditions while allowing maintenance and expansion capabilities to the plant.