A major European offshore wind developer has engaged Kinewell Energy to re-analyse the inter-array cable system of one off their offshore wind farms, demonstrating relevant cost savings.
The aim of the study was to understand what potential savings could be enabled through innovative use of Kinewell Energy’s KLOC optimisation software. The study demonstrated that some flexibility in turbine layout, asset crossings, cable type selection, substation positioning, and export cable routing are key to achieving further optimized CAPEX and added revenues through reduced transmission losses.
Dr Andrew Jenkins, Kinewell Energy Managing Director said, “We are extremely proud of our role in driving down the cost of offshore wind through the significant savings, typically in the region of 20% of CAPEX, our world leading KLOC optimisation software can deliver to inter-array cable systems.”
The KLOC software, Highly Commended by the IET Innovation Awards, rapidly develops optimised inter-array cable layouts. It appropriately prioritises the optimisation of capital cost against operational costs such as electrical transmission losses and unavailability losses due to cable faults.
Although the KLOC software has been developed around offshore wind, it has other applications as well. It can be used to optimise the inter-array layout of connecting any number of nodes with a central location. That means it is immediately transferable to large onshore wind, large solar, wave and tidal energy projects. However, it could also be used for array cables that supply (rather than receive) energy to (or from) those nodes, such as Electric Vehicle (EV) charging points in large car parks.
