December 21 (SeeNews) - Norwegian energy transmission company Nexans has successfully completed the installation and testing of a 445 km submarine and land mass-impregnated cable linking the power distribution systems of Italy and Montenegro, the company said.
Nexans completed an extensive test programme, in order to verify that the cable, comprising 423 km of aluminium conductor subsea cable and 22 km of copper conductor onshore cable, complies with the standards of Italian power grid operator Terna, the Norwegian group said in a statement earlier this week.
The cable installation was part of the MONITA (MONtenegro – ITAly) project of Terna to link the power grids between the Balkan peninsula and Italy in order to help secure the energy supplies of European countries and integrate their electrical systems while providing significant additional exporting capabilities.
"Successfully completing this rigorous test program is a key milestone in the delivery of the HVDC [high-voltage direct current] cable for the MONITA link. We have had to overcome many challenges along the way, especially in finding a suitable submarine cable route through a challenging area in the Adriatic Sea as well as keeping in line with the strict schedule envisaged in Terna’s requirements," Nexan's manager for the MONITA link, Marco Bregman, commented.
The submarine cable was transported and laid in three separate marine campaigns of approximately 160 km each by Nexans’ own cable-laying vessel Nexans Skagerrak. Around 130 km of the subsea cable was laid in waters deeper than 700 m, of which 40 km of cable was installed at depths of 1,200 m.
The works for the land cables were carried out within jointing containers which provided the suitable environmental conditions for the jointing procedure, as well as a safe environment for the teams to work in.
In 2012, Terna awarded a 340 million euro ($388.2 million) contract to Nexans to supply one of the two 500 kV HVDC cables for the new interconnector linking the Cepagatti converter station in Pescara, Italy, to the Kotor converter station near Budva in Montenegro.
($ = 0.875563 euro)