The UK's cable opportunity: the need to invest to power forward
Successive governments, steered by Committee on Climate Change assessment, have recognised that offshore wind will not only provide the backbone of the UK’s future clean energy system but also presents one of our largest industrial growth opportunities. Targets for its growth have become ever more ambitious as we strive towards a fully decarbonized energy system and net-zero.
The success of the industry has been driven by both favourable policy and industrial innovation, with turbine sizes growing at a relentless pace. Despite a hiatus with the failed AR5 Contracts for Difference auction in September 2023, increased prices and allocation for the recently announced AR6 have made up some ground and put the industry back on track.
This increasing portfolio of offshore wind projects under development scale is driving huge demand for ever-greater cable capacity to carry the power from turbine to substation and onward to the grid to power our homes and workplaces. The estimated value of the UK cables market in 2023 was £318m against a global market opportunity of £2.29bn. By 2030, the UK’s market opportunity could rise to £539m against a global backdrop of £4.06bn.
At the Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult, we own and operate the UK’s largest high-voltage test facilities and have continually invested to expand and keep pace with the UK’s increasing demand, not only at our National Renewable Energy Centre in Blyth but also at our new Floating Wind Innovation Centre in Aberdeen.
Over recent years, larger turbines have driven progression from 33kV cable technology as the industry standard for inter-array cables to 66kV, and we are now seeing demand for testing array cables at 132kV (both static and dynamic variants). Investment in UK manufacturing is presenting local demand for testing 275kV-rated export cables within the next year. HVDC export cables - for transmission from larger wind farms further offshore - can be expected to move from operating at 320kV to 525kV over the coming decade. We anticipate that there will be significantly more demand for high-voltage tests on cables and accessories in future, as industry leaders develop and certify their products to meet these new requirements.
The development of floating offshore wind has also given rise to the need for dynamic cables - no longer static and buried in the seabed, but requiring a lifetime of flexibility that poses considerable reliability challenges.
Such testing facilities are absolutely vital for the development of these new cables. Required to operate in the harshest marine environment, their reliability is critical not only for our energy security but also for keeping costs down. Approximately 80 per cent of the value of offshore wind farm insurance claims is linked to cable failures.
Provision of independent test capabilities in the UK enables us to develop the knowledge and capability to demonstrate and qualify new cable system innovations, trial new materials technologies, support the growth of our own industry and attract others to bring their own product development to these shores
And we know that such investment can pay handsome dividends. For many years, ORE Catapult has worked in close partnership with the UK’s leading cable manufacturer, JDR Cables, supporting its ongoing, highly innovative product development. Their 66kV cable technology, tried and proven at our Blyth facilities, has enabled the success of many of the world’s largest and most pioneering offshore wind farms, including EOWDC Aberdeen Bay, East Anglia One, Hornsea Two, Moray West and Vineyard Offshore Wind in the US, to name but a few.
Their dynamic 66kV cables for floating offshore wind have been used in the Windfloat Atlantic project in Portugal, installed in 2019, and the Hywind Tampen project in Norway in 2022, the world’s largest floating offshore wind farm to date. Technology and innovation collaboration directly leading to export success for UK supply chain companies.
What is more, in September 2021, JDR announced a £130m investment in a high-voltage subsea cable manufacturing facility: “The opportunity to continue our collaboration with ORE Catapult in Blyth, along with many other businesses clustered along the Blyth River, was one of the important factors attracting JDR and Tele-Fonika to construct our new facility in Northumberland”, comments James Young, JDR’s Chief Strategy Officer.
But we cannot rest on our laurels and, without continued investment, we risk being left behind in terms of the provision of world-class facilities. Despite doubling our capacity over recent months, demand far outstrips supply, and we know that the likes of JDR - and many other companies from around the world - are forced to seek additional facilities abroad to meet their needs.
James Young says, “A lack of testing and validation facilities will throttle our industry’s ability to grow and expand at the planned pace and could slow JDR’s ability to serve the full offshore subsea cable market”.
With the certain UK and global expansion of offshore wind and the resulting increase in demand for ever-larger cables, it is vital that we retain and in fact expand our capability and capacity in terms of technical support services and product validation and testing facilities in energy infrastructure cabling. We have a real opportunity to maintain and grow a world-leading industry that will create thousands of jobs. We should act fast to make the investments that will secure this opportunity.
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