Submarine telecoms cables have an average of 210 faults per year on the global infrastructure, the vast majority of which are caused by external aggression, such as fishing and anchoring. Many of the increasing network of power interconnector, array and export cables follow comparable routes, or are in similar areas to the shallower water telecoms cables. We can therefore be reasonably confident that the same threats that cause outages on telecoms cables, have the potential to have the same impact on power cables. With cable damage accounting for as much as 80% of insurance claims for offshore wind farms and individual cases known to have caused losses of £10 million when lost output and repair costs are combined, it’s an issue that can’t be overlooked.
Applying lessons from telecoms outages to the power cable industry
