- Vineyard Wind has started the first phase of the undersea transmission cable.
- The project will use General Electric Haliade-X turbines, each rated at 13 MW.
Vineyard Wind has started the first phase of the undersea transmission cable laying work, an array of 62 wind turbines in Long Island Sound some 13 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard. The project will use General Electric Haliade-X turbines, each rated at 13 MW.
The offshore export cables are 220–275 kV AC cables, while the inter-array cables are 66 kV AC cables. Offshore export cables are 10-11 inches in diameter, and the inter-array cables are 5-6 inches in diameter. They are buried by jet plow from 5-8 feet below the seabed.
Typical cable vessel installation speeds range from 330ft to 650ft per hour to around 1-2 nautical miles in 18 hours.
Vineyard Wind alerted mariners in the area that its cable-laying vessels would start work in late October.
A construction barge, materials barge, and two tugs are expected to perform diving operations at ducts to prepare the cables for connection and pull-in to the beach. Six smaller workboats and a crew transfer vessel are expected to assist.
As part of the work, a cable barge was to be towed to the site to begin cable laying operations around 700 meters off a beach on Martha’s Vineyard. Plans called for the cable to be pulled to shore by an onshore winch. Once secured, a vessel will lay and bury the cable away from the beach to the Cape Poge area.