Jersey Electricity today signed contracts worth £40million for the manufacture and installation of Jersey's third submarine cable to France and adjoining land cable link.
Jersey Electricity today signed contracts worth £40million for the manufacture and installation of Jersey's third submarine cable to France, the 100MW Normandie 3, and adjoining land cable link in Jersey.
The deal, with energy and telecom cable systems giant Prysmian Group, is the next major step in this £70million, ten-year project to secure access to lower cost, more reliable, low carbon electricity from France for decades to come.
Prysmian Powerlink Sales Director Raul Gil and Sales Manager Olivier Angoulevant together with Prysmian UK CEO Paul Atkinson and Commercial Director Graham Spraggs attended the signing ceremony at The Powerhouse with Jersey Electricity CEO Chris Ambler, Finance Director Martin Magee, Energy Division Director David Padfield and the project team.
Prysmian Group will supply and install 35km of High Voltage Alternate Current (HVAC) submarine cable and 7km of 90,000-Volt land cable, along with related network components and specialist civil works landside here in Jersey and in France.
The cable, which is expected will eventually form part of the Channel Islands Electricity Grid (CIEG), will take a more southerly route to Jersey's current supply cable Normandie 2 and connect to a different, more resilient part of the French network to further enhance security of supply. Normandie 3 will connect to a 400kV substation at Periers via 19km of land cable.
It will enter the sea at Pirou Plage on the French coast and come ashore in Grouville Bay connecting into a 90,000-Volt land cable carrying power to JE's £10million South Hill Switching Station commissioned in 2011. The submarine cable will be manufactured at Prysmian's flagship Arco Felice plant, Naples, while the land cable will be made in Gron, France.
The marine cable laying and burial will be performed by Prysmian's recently acquired Global Marine Energy (GME) team that has particular expertise in offshore wind farm connections and is currently involved in major projects under construction in the North Sea. The land cable in Jersey will be installed by Prysmian UK who have subcontracted the civil works to local contractors Jayen Ltd. Work is expected to start this month.
The cable-laying vessel Cable Enterprise is intended to be used to lay the marine section, which is scheduled to start in the first quarter of 2014. If all goes well, Normandie 3 should be in service in 2015.
Although the project has been eight years in the making, it was given fresh impetus last year when Jersey's original supply cable EDF1 failed permanently on 17 June, forcing Jersey Electricity to supplement imported power with more expensive on-Island generation at its standby facility at La Collette Power Station this winter which precipitated a 9.5% tariff rise at the start of 2013.
Speaking after the contracts were signed, JE CEO Chris Ambler
said: 'This is another milestone in what has been a long and
complex process. My thanks go to the team which has worked
tirelessly with our counterparts at RTE, the French
transmission systems operator, and many varied French authorities
and interest groups to obtain planning permission for Normandie 3.
Now, with our new partners Prysmian Group, we look forward to
making real headway with this vital project in 2013 and 2014.
'Prysmian Group are world leaders in the power cable systems industry. They last year won the contract for the Westernlink HVDC submarine connection between Scotland and England, to provide extra capacity in the UK electricity transmission system. Their expertise and resources will be invaluable and we look forward to working with them on this project which is so important to Jersey and our CIEG partners in Guernsey.'
