News this week

Firstly, we are happy to say that the cable laying project EMEC undertook this year has won an award. EMEC, Global Marine, J+S and Draka were jointly awarded “Most Effective Tidal Energy Project Development 2010” at the 4th International Tidal Summit and Awards this week in London.

Seven kilometres of cable supplied by cable manufacturer Draka from their Norwegian factory at Drammen were laid; creating two new test berths at EMEC’s tidal test site off Eday. EMEC also used the opportunity to carry out another project in parallel: to fit bespoke cable terminations to the existing and new cables on site. The terminations, designed and built by oil and gas engineering business, J+S Ltd, allow developers to connect their devices and enable EMEC to vigorously test the cables. The CS Sovereign, a cable laying ship with DP capability operated by Essex-based Global Marine Systems Ltd, was chartered to carry out the work. This was a challenging project performed in the ever changing conditions (up to 6 knots of current) at EMEC’s Tidal Test Site and was carried out with great professionalism by the teams involved under EMEC management, to time and budget. Well done to everyone who played their part.

Neil Kermode and Richard Morris were both in London taking part in the Tidal Summit, and Neil then travelled to Inverness to speak at the ScottishRenewables Marine Conference and Exhibition. Also this week we were pleased to host a visit from David Wilson, Director of Energy at the Scottish Government, and Ken Shimizu from the Yano Research Insititute, Japan