Words: Philip Rood
The marine renewables market is ever growing and SEA, a part of Cohort plc, has expanded its engineering capability to provide a variety of support services to the wave and tidal energy sectors.
Cohort plc, business SEA, has showcased its credentials, in the growing wave and tidal energy support sector, by installing a 13.2kV cable connection to support the Oceantec wave energy device located at the Biscay Marine Energy Park (BiMEP) test site in Northern Spain.
BiMEP tests prototype devices for generating wave energy, in advance of commercial production, to ensure economic and technological readiness and to ensure they are reliable and safe for commercial deployment. Once the devices have been verified, they can be considered ready for mass production and operational use.
A team of engineers and technicians from SEA, subsea engineering division, terminated the device cable connection onshore and travelled offshore to connect the two halves at the wave site. The device is now fully operational and generating wave power back to shore.
The BiMEP connections are a new variant of the nine 33kV connections first installed by SEA in 2009 at the Orkney-based European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) test centre for marine renewable energy. The connections supplied by SEA were a world-first in wave and tidal energy distribution. They have provided 100% availability for power generation, status monitoring and device control, allowing developers at BiMEP and EMEC to test and generate power to the grid.
