TEKMAR WIN MAJOR US CONTRACT

Aycliffe Business Park firm Tekmar Energy has marked a major business milestone after winning a contract on the first US offshore wind farm, Cape Wind.

The contract award underlines the cable protection specialist’s industry-leading track record for delivering custom cable protection solutions to the offshore industry.

At Cape Wind, Tekmar will design, manufacture and supply over 200 of its TekLink cable protection systems (CPS) for the project’s inter-array and export cables.

Tekmar will also supply its polyurethane bellmouth and internal cable guide cones which are attached to the foundations and offer additional support and protection to the power cables.

Once the project goes into construction, Tekmar will also be providing support offshore during live operation by overseeing the installation of its products.

The Cape Wind project will be utilising a pioneering new installation technique known as “pre-installation” which involves deploying a small support barge to install the cable protection systems ahead of the main cable installation.

This enables a smaller, more cost-effective vessel to be utilised for cable installation.

Tekmar’s TekLink system has been specifically tailored to suit this method of installation which is growing in popularity in Europe due to the overall cost reduction to the project.

The Cape Wind project is being constructed off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

The project consists of 130 Siemens’ 3.6-megawatt offshore wind turbines with a total nameplate capacity of 468 megawatts and when completed, it will produce enough electricity to supply 75% of the electricity used on Cape Cod and the Islands with zero emissions.

James Ritchie, chief executive officer at Tekmar, said: “We look forward to working with the developers at Cape Wind.

“This project in many ways marks the launch of an important new industry and the development of a corresponding supply chain in the US. We are proud to be a part of that effort.

“Tekmar looks forward to working closely with American companies, such as Whitman Consulting Group, to ensure that the lessons learned in developing projects in the UK are successfully applied to US projects to allow the market and  supply chain infrastructure to develop and expand in a quality way.”

News of Tekmar’s contract on Cape Wind comes just days after the company announced an agency agreement with the Massachusetts-based Whitman Consulting Group (WCG).

WCG will represent Tekmar as its commercial services agent for the full line of Tekmar products and services in the US, Canada and the Caribbean.

WCG will focus on the offshore renewable energy markets for wind and marine hydrokinetic as well as oil & gas and high voltage offshore transmission.

Tekmar has worked on more than 27 major offshore wind farms and supplied over 3,000 systems since its entry into the market with the company’s TekLink system.

TekLink has revolutionised the connection and protection of subsea power cables.