Belgium-based company Marlinks has secured a major contract in Taiwan to provide cable health monitoring services for the export and inter-array cables of the 1,044 MW Hai Long offshore wind farm (OWF).
The project is being developed by a partnership between the Canadian Northland Power Inc., Taiwan’s Yushan Energy Pte., Limited, and Japan’s Mitsui & Company, Limited. The Hai Long development will consist of two OWFs that will be built in three stages, with Hai Long 2 being divided into two phases: the 300 MW Hai Long 2a and 232 MW Hai Long 2b, while 512 MW will be built at Hai Long 3. The construction of the OWFs, located some 50 km off the Coast of Changhua County in water depths of between 35 and 55 metres, will provide electricity to approximately 1.55 million households in Taiwan. The scope of work under the contract includes the design, supply, installation, and commissioning of monitoring hardware, and ongoing provision of integrity monitoring of the cables, covering aspects such as depth of burial, real time thermal rating (RTTR), distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) monitoring, and termination monitoring. Marlinks plans to establish a branch office in Taiwan in 2023 to support its operations in the East Asian market, after having set up a representative office in 2022. Hellenic Cables and LS Cable & System had previously been awarded agreements to supply 66 kV crosslinked polyethylene -insulated interarray and submarine cables for the project. Construction of the OWFs is expected to start in 2024.