UK: LiftRig and Manor Marine to Handle London Array Subsea Power Cables

Portland in Dorset may be an Olympic site this year, but it is also the location of LiftRig Consulting’s latest subsea power cable handling and storage project.

LiftRig are working with Manor Marine to provide safe and cost-effective handling and storage of spare power cables for the world’s largest offshore wind farm. The project involves the design of handling & storage systems for over 12,000 metres of the London Array project’s spare power cables at Manor Marine’s base in Portland Port. To achieve this, Manor Marine has produced 2 storage systems to LiftRig’s designs to utilise available storage facilities with optimum arrangements for the 4 different sizes of export and array power cables.

A cable tank of 18 metres diameter has been produced with a bull ring and central cone to create two separate storage rings for export power cables. Manor Marine have built this facility in a new building with a powered quadrant the feed the cable through the roof over the centre of tank and a powered loading arm to guide the cable into the storage rings. With a capacity of 600 tonnes, this unit is only eclipsed by the 1500 tonnes capacity cable cage previously designed and project managed by LiftRig’s Nick Latham for Global Marine Systems. For the array cables, LiftRig designed a custom arrangement of reels, under roller unit and transport trolleys. The reels can each hold over 3000 metres of cable with capacities of 100 & 150 tonnes.

Manor Marine selected LiftRig to work in partnership with them for this project due to the proven experience LiftRig’s team of engineers have in structural engineering and cable storage and handling systems. Nick has been assigned the duty of Lifting Technical Authority present on site throughout the system trials and for the cable installation operations. “This is an important project for all concerned, and a schedule of testing has been undertaken to ensure that the installation runs smoothly, safely and to program,” continues Nick. “The cable installation is planned for the end of Q2 this year, and we are confident that it will take place without a hitch.”

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Offshore WIND staff, May 25, 2012; Image: liftrig