Marlinks develops a monitoring tool for offshore power cables
Marlinks develops a monitoring tool for offshore power cables
There is general consensus that green energy is the future. By 2020, Belgium wants to cover 13% of its total energy demand with renewable energy. Wind energy at sea has a considerable share in this. In the next decade, wind turbines covering almost 10,000 megawatt will be installed in the Dutch part of the North Sea, divided over twelve wind farms.
We spoke with Roel Vanthillo, director of start-up company Marlinks, incorporated by Fluves and Parkwind at the end of 2017. They monitor the power cables that transport the energy from the wind farms to the mainland. Power cables are the least visible part of these huge wind turbines but also the most vulnerable ones.
“Power cables on the seabed are buried at a depth of at least 1 metre. This is necessary as they could otherwise be damaged by anchors of ships or fishing nets. Besides, these power cables emit heat. The burial depth makes sure they cannot disturb the environment. However, the seabed is not a static landscape. Because of the waves and tides, the seabed changes continuously. That’s why it is important to monitor the burial depth.”
ACQUIRING ADDITIONAL COMPETENCES THANKS TO KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER
Fluves started looking for a competent partner to support them in two areas: knowledge of thermal and electrical processes. They chose for FlandersMake@UGent.
“Meanwhile, the cooperation has been successfully completed. The project gradually evolved. In the course of such research, you always find new insights pushing the project in a certain direction. We then continued to elaborate on the results internally. We fine-tuned the code and worked out the statistical model in greater detail. Then we joined forces (at sea) with Parkwind, a developer of offshore wind farms. This resulted in the incorporation of Marlinks.”
“Our next steps? Apart from projects in Belgium, we are now monitoring the power cables for the Dutch Gemini wind farm, the biggest offshore wind farm in Europe. The wind farm will produce sufficient sustainable energy for no less than 800,000 households. Such projects are vital for achieving the climate objectives.
The wind farm is located about 85 kilometres off the Dutch coast. This represents a huge amount of cables to be monitored. Thanks to the knowledge that we’ve acquired through our cooperation with FlandersMake@UGent, we are up to the task.”
- Roel Vanthillo, managing director of Marlinks.
