By lyndamyer
Cooperating with HB Tunnelling, J Murphy and Sons’ energy business unit has started process on the tunnels that are going to house onshore cabling for the Sofia and Dogger Bank C offshore wind projects.
Also installation of a 7km high-voltage direct current (HVDC) onshore cable route in Teesside, is a part of this tunneling works.
While the location of Sofia and Dogger Bank C projects are both on Dogger Bank, more than 195km from the north east coast of England, the third phase of the Dogger Bank wind farm belongs to Dogger Bank C.
The determined place for arrival of the export cables for the two wind projects is due to be the shore in Teesside, between Redcar and Marske-by-the-Sea, whereas they will share their onshore cable corridors, and their cable ducts are being installed at the same time.
In February 2022, the design and delivery contract for the onshore cabling was awarded to Engineering and construction firm J Murphy and Sons and it has commenced work on the four 12m to 17m deep tunnels that pass beneath a railway bridge, as well as eight shafts.
In order to installing the 1,200mm pipe-jacked micro tunnels, with drive lengths between 107m and 150m, the help of Murphy’s specialist supply chain partner HB Tunnelling is being using.
Although the scheduled date for completion of the tunneling works is June 2023, the full civil works is slated to be run through until the end of 2024.
Following its completion, the cable routes will link the two offshore wind projects to their new onshore converter stations situated within Wilton International.
While the whole owner of Sofia is RWE, Dogger Bank wind farm is a joint venture between SSE Renewables, Equinor and Vårgrønn.
Despite that they are owned by different companies, the developers are working jointly at the site of their adjacent converter stations and along the shared onshore cable route.
