Plugging in Beatrice

has begun subsea cable installation work on the offshore Beatrice Wind Farm Demonstrator Project (Beatrice Project).

The initial project will use two wind turbines 25km off the east coast of Scotland to test the viability of the Beatrice Oil Field as a future site for a commercial deep-water wind farm.

July’s Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Energy Review highlighted that up to a third of the UK’s oil and gas-generating capacity will reach the end of its life over the next twenty years. The Beatrice Project could help in addressing the DTI’s strategy to increase the proportion of electricity generated from renewables to 20%, which represents a five-fold increase from today’s level.

Commenting today, Ian Gaitch, Renewable Energy Manager at Global Marine said, ‘Beatrice is an important project involving industry, academia and government collaboration which we are pleased to be part of as Global Marine continues to diversify its core telecom cable installation experience into other sectors, such as renewable energy.’

Using its Cable Ship Sovereign, Global Marine will install two main cables, each comprising a power and fibre optic cable, to connect the two five megawatt turbines to Talisman’s Beatrice Alpha oil platform.

The cable installation will enable Talisman to power Beatrice Alpha using energy generated from the turbines and also remotely control and monitor certain aspects of the turbines’ performance from the oil platform, such as altering blade pitch and sending back turbine performance data for analysis.