French cable manufacturer Nexans has completed the installation of high voltage cables for the 88MW Kype Muir wind farm in Scotland.
Image: Nexans completes cables installation at Scottish wind farm. Photo: Courtesy of Peter Bauer/FreeImages.com
For this project, Nexans has installed 16km of 132 kV underground grid connection for SP Energy Networks.
The wind farm is owned by Banks Renewables. The Kype Muir wind farm is powered by 26 of Senvion’s 3.4M114 turbines, each with 3.4MW of generating capacity. It is spread across in an area of about 570 hectares.
Considered to be a flagship project for the Banks Group, the wind farm is located around 5km from the town of Strathaven in South Lanarkshire.
The 16km underground cable connection, which links the new 132 / 33 kV SP Energy Networks substation at the Kype Muir site with the existing Coalburn 400 / 132 kV grid substation, is considered a key element in the project.
To provide three individual phases for the grid connection of the wind project, Nexans supplied nearly 50km of cross-linked polyethylene (XLPE) insulated cable with an aluminium conductor and an aluminium welded sheath.
The cable was manufactured at the French company’s Benelux factory in Charleroi, Belgium. The accessories, manufactured at Nexans’ Swiss plant in Cortaillod and include six FEV outdoor terminations and 60 cross-bonding joints with associated link boxes.
Nexans Project Delivery Head Mike Rintoul said: “The success of the Kype Muir project further demonstrates Nexans’ expertise in project delivery for wind farm projects with a demanding schedule and environment.
“We are also delighted to have further enhanced our working relationship with SP Energy Networks from our UK office in Edinburgh, after the successful execution of a similar wind farm project at Kilgallioch and other recent substation projects at Wishaw, Windyhill and Maentwrog.”
In December 2018, Nexans formed a consortium with Tesmec’s subsidiary Marais Laying Technologies Australia to offer a complete collector cable service for Stockyard Hill wind farm in Australia.
The consortium of Nexans and Marais Laying was selected by Goldwind Australia’s Stockyard Hill project’s Balance of Plant contractor SNC-Lavalin and WHBO joint venture.