Nexans wins subsea HVDC cable contract from Greece’s Ariadne Interconnection

Nexans has been awarded a contract to design, manufacture, and install a 335-kilometre subsea high voltage direct current (HVDC) cable system for Ariadne Interconnection, a company 100 percent owned by Greece’s state grid operator IPTO.

The interconnection will link the electricity network on mainland Greece to Crete. The project will provide security of supply for the island and will enable its transition from fossil fuel generation to renewable wind and solar energy resources.

The cable will span a subsea distance of 335 kilometres from the Attica region on the Greek mainland to the Herakleion area in Crete. Over a 35-month period, Nexans will provide one 500MW HVDC subsea cable system to form half of the total 1,000MW bipole interconnection.

The Nexans cable, rated at 500,000 Volts, is based on its mass impregnated nondraining design for HVDC cable systems and will integrate fibre optic elements for sensor applications.

The near-shore sections of the cable, to be installed at water depths down to 100 metres, will feature an aluminium conductor core with a cross-section of 1,800 square millimetres. The deeper sections of the cable, installed at depths down to 1,200 metres, will feature a 1,500-square-millimetre cross-section aluminium conductor.

The cable will be protected by trenching into the seabed at a depth of 600 metres.

The HVDC cable will be manufactured in the Nexans plant in Halden, Norway, and/or the plant in Futtsu, Japan. It will be installed by either Nexans Skagerrak (pictured) or Nexans Aurora.

The interconnection is scheduled to come online in 2023.