As revealed in a previous report by TX (“Export Cable Reliability: Description of Concerns”) the rate of failures occurring on the high voltage submarine export cables which serve Britain’s offshore wind farms is higher than expected, and this is due to problems with the optical fibres included within these power cables.
Sean Kelly, the director of TX, is leading an industry group which is seeking to understand these failures and to improve the design and reliability of future cables.
In parallel with this, TX has written a further report (“Export Cable Reliability: Alternatives to Interstitial FIMT Optical Fibres”) which explores more radical options – new types of optical fibre, moving the optical fibre out of the power cable, or even removing the optical fibre altogether.
The report can be downloaded using the link below.