The 2,685-tonne Atlantic Carrier returns to Jersey waters on Monday (3 April) to begin the second phase of the recovery from the seabed of EDF1, the first power supply cable link between France and Jersey, laid in 1985. Almost a third of the 55MW, 27km cable has already been recovered. The multi-cat MC Ailsa has completed her inshore work, having recovered the first 1,200m from Jersey waters and 1,300m from French waters, and is now in Great Yarmouth being demobbed.
The Atlantic Carrier has been clearly visible off Archirondel in recent weeks
The 2,685-tonne Atlantic Carrier returns to Jersey waters on Monday (3 April) to begin the second phase of the recovery from the seabed of EDF1, the first power supply cable link between France and Jersey, laid in 1985. Almost a third of the 55MW, 27km cable has already been recovered. The multi-cat MC Ailsa has completed her inshore work, having recovered the first 1,200m from Jersey waters and 1,300m from French waters, and is now in Great Yarmouth being demobbed.
The multi-cat MC Ailsa has completed the inshore operations
The 82-metre, Norwegian-built Atlantic Carrier, clearly visible off the coast of Archirondel in recent weeks, offloaded the first 1,200m from the Ailsa and recovered 3,500m from deeper Jersey waters before she departed for England to discharge the scrap load for responsible disposal and recycling. On her return the Carrier will begin the recovery of a further 10km, which will again need to be offloaded in England, before the final 10km in French waters is recovered, hopefully by mid-April.
The Ailsa offloads the first 1,200m of cable on to the Atlantic Carrier
The 100MW replacement for EDF1, known as Normandie 1(N1), is currently being manufactured by Prysmian Powerlink in Naples. Dutch specialists VBMS will be responsible for its installation later this summer over the same route as EDF1 from St Remy des Landes, Surville, to Archirondel where the new cable will connect to existing 90kV infrastructure. Over in France, RTE will replace the land cable from St Remy to the beach at Surville. The substation at Surville Plage, which connected EDF1 to the French grid, will be dismantled and the land returned to nature.
The scrap cable onboad the Atlantic Carrier ready for disposal and recycling in England
N1 is a joint £40m investment made in conjunction with Guernsey Electricity, overseen by the Channel Islands Electricity Grid (CIEG). Around 97% of Jersey’s electricity is imported through two existing undersea cables, Normandie 2 and Normandie 3, from low carbon sources in France. This includes 200 million units from renewable hydroelectric generation.
