Experience matters when it comes to ensuring subsea cable systems survive variable ocean conditions. After all, if any part of the cable system assembly fails at sea, repairing or replacing it is expensive and arduous. PMI’s cable testing and analysis is an excellent way for customers and third parties to feel confident about their cable system components and the integrity of the complete system.
“Few labs offer the tests or use the equipment we do to find vulnerabilities and confirm satisfactory performance before the cable is deployed,” says Jay Marino, P.E., PMI Manager, Engineering, Government Services & Test Lab. “We’ve worked with many customers over four decades to simulate at-sea conditions and provide quality inspection and assurance services. PMI’s insight into a product’s durability is a value-added service that customers seek out. They like the fact that our tests can be uniquely tailored to meet their needs.”
As deep ocean exploration has grown over the years, the heavy-duty cables used in subsea projects are expected to last for decades. Unfortunately, 80% of unexpected challenges and delays in marine projects are caused by cable failure.
Equipment provides extensive measurement capabilities
Determining the service life of a cable system and/or its components is a specialty of PMI’s. Besides the tests PMI does on its own products, organizations come to PMI for certification and testing services, particularly ones designed to assess electrical, optical, and mechanical applications.
Customers with new cables may want to do tension cycling on them. PMI’s long span tension setup machine is capable of testing cables up to 457m (1,500 ft.) over multiple sheaves, with tension up to 53.4 kN (12,000 lbf.).
“A manufacturer that makes a cable assembly will send a sample to us to test,” says Marino, who has been involved with PMI’s cable testing facility for over three decades. “Important testing we frequently do for customers checks the cable’s subsea mechanical responses. When someone develops a new cable and wants to run it through its paces, we’ll do tension cycling on it. We’ll also measure the torque and rotation to verify its torque balance characteristics.
“Cables typically are ‘torque balanced,’ but that doesn’t mean they’re perfectly torque balanced,” he continues. “What it means is that the cable is typically designed to minimize torque. Some torque remains, sometimes a little or a lot.
“We can measure the torque that’s generated when it’s loaded. We can also measure its rotation,” he says. “For example, if we fix one end of a cable sample and pull on the other end while allowing it to rotate, we can measure that rotation. Or, we can fix both ends and measure the torque generated in the cable. We can also rotate one end to intentionally generate torque in the sample to see how it reacts. Of course, hydrostatic pressure testing is usually part of the picture. These are tests we typically run. There aren’t many test labs which have this type of equipment.”
The CBOS (cyclic bend over sheave) machine is used to check a cable’s subsea mechanical responses, including its fatigue resistance and simulating its handling system problems.
The equipment PMI uses to test and measure for performance and reliability include:
- Long span tension setup
- Hydrostatic pressure chambers
- CBOS (cyclic bend over sheave) machine
- 100-kip straight tension machine
The equipment can test:
- Raw cable (steel armored or synthetic strength member)
- Rope and hose assemblies
- Cable assemblies
- Cable hardware
- Terminations
- Other equipment used in subsea projects
Customer-driven laboratory testing
One of PMI’s hydrostatic pressure chambers (above) can be used to simulate at-depth pressure loading and verify seal and electrical and optical performance.
Each test is based on the customer’s unique set of parameters. Additionally, the time involved varies based on the customer’s application, interface, and materials requirements.
“We test the cable or component at the conditions that the customer expects during operations in the ocean,” says Thom Bosch, PMI lab technician who has been involved with the company’s laboratory testing for 14 years. “For example, if they’re towing a cable or component through the water, they can calculate the drag force on the towed object, which is related to the tension in the cable. We’ll test to that tension value plus a safety factor for dynamics, usually doing many cycles over hours or days. Our customers typically have an idea of how much variability they can tolerate and still operate their cable system or device.”
These kinds of customer-focused interactions are one reason PMI has been a leader of in-house dynamic cable testing and analysis for nearly 40 years.
The 100-kip straight tension machine is used to measure up to 65 feet of cable to determine its proof, tension and breaking strength.
“We offer independent testing services to any company in the industries we serve,” Marino says. “We can test the performance, and sometimes the limits, of a customer’s cable or equipment beforehand so that there aren’t any expensive surprises in the field.”
To set up a free consultation or get technical support, contact Jay Marino at jmarino@pmiind.com or any member of our leadership or sales team. Their contact information is found on the Contact Us page on our website.
Blog Summary:
- 80% of unexpected challenges and delays in marine projects is cable failure.
- Cable failure creates risks for losing expensive subsea equipment.
- Full-strength underwater cable terminations prevent cable failure during deployment and retrieval of subsea equipment.
- Unlike other helical terminations, PMI’s grips are built to hold your subsea cable to the full-rated breaking strength
- A benefit of the helical wire design permits easy installation of the termination anywhere along the length of the cable and does not require access to the cable end.
- Can be easy installation anywhere along the length of the cable and anywhere in the field.
- Do not require tools or cable preparation.
More subsea projects are happening than ever before, and ROVs, side-scan sonars, and other offshore equipment are almost always an element within them.
When equipment like ROVs and side-scan sonars are deployed or received, the twisting and bending of the cable at the termination point is common. Side-scan sonars and ROVs need these cables to stay intact and be able to bear the weight of the equipment. If these cables can’t keep up, it will cost serious delay and expense to projects.
Cable failure is the cause of 80% of unexpected challenges and delays.
The most common instance happens when subsea equipment is deployed from a vessel or retrieved from the sea and fails due to an extreme amount of tension being placed on the attached subsea cables. If these delicate cables are not terminated properly, they experience damage from strumming and snap loading. At this point, your crew can find themselves spending a good day starting over with installing a brand new termination – costing your project valuable time and money.
Without a proper underwater cable termination or grip, all of the stress and tension is concentrated along the cable where it is attached to the equipment. This is a ton of localized stress on what is usually a very expensive mechanical, electrical, or optical cable. Without a full-rated strength termination, you could be creating a recipe for disaster – cable damage, or worse, a cable break that results in the loss of expensive equipment.
How Helical Terminations Prevent Cable Damage
Helical terminations are designed to function similarly to a Chinese finger trap — a childhood toy that is a woven paper tube letting you place a finger into each end, and then, as you try to pull your fingers out, the tube tightens around your fingers. The harder you try to pull, the tighter the tube grasps your fingers, creating a secure hold.
Helical terminations work the same way. Helical rods are wrapped around the subsea cable at the termination location of the undersea equipment. With a helical termination, all of the stresses that would occur at one localized point on the cable are spread out over the length of the cable wrapped with the helical rods; therefore, greatly reducing the stress on any specific location of the cable.
To be technical, axial loading, a force that passes through the center of an object, causes elongation of the helix (or cable) and results in radial contraction. This compressive force gives the helical rods its ability to hold force. If you hold one end of the helical rod and attempt to pull the cable out, you transfer the load from the cable to the helical rods.
If at any point the load increases, the holding force increases. This mechanism provides a gradual transition of the load from the cable into the helical rod until the helical rods carry the full axial load.
Creating Reliable Attachment Points
A benefit of the helical wire design permits easy installation of the termination anywhere along the length of the cable and does not require access to the cable end. Many times attachment points are needed along the length of the cable. A good example of this is for creating an attachment point for the cable to be lifted from the seabed.
Why PMI’s Helical CABLE-GRIP™ and STOPPER-GRIP™ Terminations are a Preferred Choice
Unlike other helical terminations, PMI’s grips are built to hold your subsea cable to the full-rated breaking strength. When you are working with some of the most advanced and extremely expensive machinery in the industry, you can be confident that PMI’s equipment protects yours better than any cable hardware on the market today.
PMI’s Helical Terminations:
- Generate full-rated breaking strength.
- Permit easy installation anywhere along the length of the cable and anywhere in the field.
- Do not require tools or cable preparation.
- Come furnished in galvanized steel. Other materials, such as stainless steel, are available upon request.
- Work with many jacketed and synthetic strength members.
Invest in your project’s future
PMI’s Cable Grip and Stopper Grip Terminations are an inexpensive investment for preventing damaged cables or replacing a lost piece of expensive robotics. PMI underwater cable terminations have been used on cables for over 50 years, preventing subsea cable damage and maintaining cable integrity.
Check out our Full Rated Strength Terminations:
PMI offers Cable-Grip, Stopper-Grip, and EverGrip Terminations that all utilize Helical Rods.
Not sure what your project needs or have more questions about our helical terminations? Ask one of our experts today to help.
It’s impossible to separate underwater engineering from the research emerging from major universities. Indeed, this engineering discipline is proving central to the evolution of offshore wind power in the United States.
That’s especially true at three Ohio universities, where researchers are building a scientific and engineering foundation for the development of offshore wind in the Great Lakes region. Since PMI is based in Cleveland not far from the shores of Lake Erie, we have interest in the success of our local researchers.
These scientists join a host of researchers around the country exploring the potential of offshore wind. Scientists and engineers also have explored the phenomenon of stranded energy in Alaska and weighed the potential of offshore wind along Florida’s thousand-mile coastline. (Stop by ScienceDaily.com and search on the phrase “offshore wind”—you’ll find a bevy of fascinating projects).
A quick review of these studies paints an impressive picture of the potential of underwater engineering to address the challenges of developing offshore wind farms.
Offshore in the Great Lakes
Case Western Reserve University, University of Toledo, and Bowling Green State University have tested potential wind turbine designs and modeled wildlife travels around installed wind turbines. And, a local company has won a $40 million grant to develop an offshore wind farm in Lake Erie about eight miles north of Cleveland. These two projects offer a window on the development of offshore wind in the U.S.
- The Icebreaker Project. Lake Erie Energy Develop Corp. (LEEDCo) is spearheading the development of a six-turbine wind farm whose construction could start as early as 2018. It’s called Icebreaker because ice is a serious winter hazard on Lake Erie—to survive, a wind farm must be able to fend off massive ice floes. But the project’s importance goes far beyond underwater engineering. It’s also a pilot project for tapping the massive resources of the U.S. industrial heartland—potentially creating a center for offshore wind manufacturing for the whole country.
- Coastal Ohio Wind Project. This study united scientists from University of Toledo and Bowling Green State University to figure out whether offshore wind turbines in northern Ohio work better with two blades or three (two is a smarter choice, they concluded). They also studied migratory patterns of local bird species to assess the potential environmental risks of offshore wind on Lake Erie.
Stranded Energy in Alaska
Alaska’s energy potential stretches far beyond its oil and gas reserves. The state also has ample tidal, wind, and geothermal energy resources, but there’s a fundamental challenge: They’re all stranded—either too far from the nearest population center or simply too difficult to develop economically.
A report from the Alaska Center for Energy and Power at University of Alaska-Fairbanks explores the challenges of stranded energy in Alaska. Areas with abundant wind, for instance, have few people to use it. The report raises another fascinating (if remote) possibility—moving energy-intensive industrial processes like metals smelting to sections of Alaska that have enough cheap renewable energy to make such a move economically feasible.
Offshore wind in the Sunshine State?
Florida has abundant coastline and coastal breezes, but how ready is it for offshore energy development?
“Florida’s wide continental shelves and 1,197 miles of coastline present ample opportunities for siting wind farms outside of coastal view sheds,” concludes a report from the University of Florida-Gainesville. The report notes that offshore wind in Florida could conceivably produce thousands of megawatts of power, though it recommends further research to derive more authoritative energy estimates.
“A systematic and thorough evaluation of Florida’s wind resource is critical to identify the best opportunities for investing in the state’s offshore wind energy resources,” the report concludes.
The NNMREC
Recently, the Northwestern National Marine Renewable Energy Center (NNMREC) received a $40 million award from the United States Department of Energy to develop a tidal energy testing facilities along the Pacific coast. This project, the Pacific Marine Energy Center (PMEC), interacts with campuses across the coast, including:
- The University of Alaska Fairbanks
- University of Washington
- Oregon State University
These different facilities are testing everything from wave flume to river energy converters. Over time, more testing facilities might be added to further build the PMEC portfolio and realize the goal of renewable wave technology.
Research will guide us forward
It’s refreshing to see that researchers are undaunted by the considerable economic, ecological, and logistical challenges of developing offshore wind in the U.S.
At PMI, we’d certainly like to see the Great Lakes become a center of offshore wind technology, industry, and development. Our region has the wind, the skill and the industrial base to take offshore renewable energy as far as it can go.
And suffice to say if it can happen in the middle of the continent, it certainly can happen along the Atlantic, Gulf, and Pacific coasts.
While Europe gets all the credit for the rise of efficient offshore wind farms, there’s a lot of potential brewing in Asia — especially in countries that already have active land-based wind power.
China has already built so many inland wind farms on land that it has more capacity than its interior population can use — which frequently idles many turbines. Coastal cities, however, are much more hungry for power, so offshore wind is still a priority.
South Korea’s first offshore wind farm is set to be commissioned later this year, with 10 turbines near Jeju, an island south of the nation’s mainland. Japan has a smattering of small offshore wind farms and plans for innovative floating platforms, and Taiwan is getting into the offshore-wind game as well.
We’re also excited about the potential for offshore wind energy in India, Singapore, and Indonesia. Here’s a quick look at what’s happening with offshore wind and marine renewables in each of them:
India
India’s 4,600 miles (7,500 km) of coastline present abundant opportunities for offshore wind development. The world’s most populous democracy already has a goal of producing 60 gigawatts of wind power by 2022, but offshore wind farms are still years in the future.
Sarvesh Kumar, chairman of the Indian Wind Turbine Manufacturing Association, said in an interview with LiveMint.com that he expects India to be ready to implement offshore projects by about 2020.
Meanwhile, India’s power needs are exploding. As more of its 1.3 billion people move into cities, power demand is expected to quadruple by 2040, according to the International Energy Agency’s “India Energy Outlook 2015.”
Experts are already scoping out the potential of the coastlines of Gujarat on the west coast and Tamil Nadu in the southeast.
Singapore
The city-state at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula is well-known for its innovations in finance, industry, and technology. All those assets are coming into play as Singapore ramps up its focus on renewable energy sources.
In one of its most fascinating renewables initiatives, Nanyang Technological University is building an energy plant that combines elements of solar, tidal, wind, and power-to-gas technologies in a demonstration project that could potentially bring cheap electricity to remote islands with small populations.
The project will develop four microgrids that can provide about 1 megawatt of power, enough for a small community living in an area with abundant sea resources. It also could be an emergency energy source.
Though Singapore’s topography makes it unsuitable for domestic wind power generation, many global companies in the wind-power sector have set up Singapore offices to take advantage of its access to capital and technologies. So don’t be surprised to see the city-state come up in renewable-energy discussions.
Indonesia
Microgrid developers no doubt had Indonesia on their minds, given that the archipelago has more than 900 inhabited islands. The nation’s far-flung population complicates its renewable-energy potential, but it’s still aiming to ramp up its commitment to green energies, including wind power.
Indonesia’s opening forays into wind power are ramping up on land, with the Danish company Vestas supplying turbines to a 60-megawatt wind farm in the province of South Sulawesi. All those islands have potential for developing offshore wind as well — a fact not lost on the European firms working to get a toehold in Indonesia.
Meanwhile, a tidal energy project in Indonesia uses a novel approach: attaching underwater turbines to a floating bridge. The Palmerah Tidal Bridge will install tidal turbines close to the water surface where there is more water movement — and hence more energy potential — than turbines installed on the sea floor.
Asia showing the way forward
The rising economies and growing populations of Asia will place ever-increasing pressure on the region’s energy systems. Indeed, forward-looking Asian nations have developed ambitious renewable-energy goals that will require substantial expertise and capital investment.
The maturity of wind power in the U.S. and Europe combined with the massive growth in China mean there’s plenty of renewable energy expertise across the region. It’ll be incumbent on entrepreneurs, financiers, and governments to find common ground to take advantage of these opportunities.
A shallow patch of the North Sea is the site of an intriguing plan to reduce the cost and complexity of offshore wind farms.
Announced in March 2017, the plan calls for the construction of an artificial island to form the hub of a massive network of wind turbines. One key advantage of a hub is that it shortens the distance between the wind turbines and land — slashing cabling costs and reducing the risk of cable damage. The hub would then distribute the electricity to mainland power grids.
European power companies based in Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands signed an agreement to launch a feasibility study for constructing the North Sea Wind Power Hub on Dogger Bank, which is just over 60 miles east of England’s coastline.
Media reports estimated the cost at around $2 billion and suggested it could go into development between 2030 and 2050.
Details on the North Sea Wind Power Hub
The current proposal calls for an artificial island of about 2.5 square miles with an airport, harbor, homes for staff and solar panels. Multiple wind farms could feed into the island hub, which would use direct-current cables to transmit energy to the mainland.
The developers say the project could capture up to 100,000 megawatts of power and serve up to 80 million people in Europe. The hub also could be a vital connection point in the energy markets of Northern Europe.
The developers are transmission system operators TenneT B.V. of the Netherlands, Energinet.dk of Denmark and TenneT GmbH of Germany. They signed an agreement in Brussels to work together on the Wind Power Hub project.
Why Dogger Bank?
The North Sea’s Dogger Bank is much shallower than its surrounding waters, making it an ideal location for wind farm development. Water depths range from 50 to 120 feet in the bank, which stretches across 6,800 square miles.
Dogger Bank is in the middle of a section of the North Sea bounded by England, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, and Norway. The bank also is a well-known fishing area, supplying cod and herring to European markets.
Shallow waters and strong winds make Dogger Bank an attractive candidate for an offshore wind farm. But the project’s effects on major fisheries could be one of the major wrinkles to emerge in the feasibility study.
Artificial islands are feasible and practical
China’s construction of artificial islands in the South China Sea is one of the most high-profile examples of the engineering prowess required to enable these kinds of projects.
Though the islands may unnerve neighboring nations, they do establish the feasibility of building artificial islands in open seas. As a wind farm hub, an artificial island provides a central location for ships, planes, personnel and other resources that would have to cross much larger distances from the mainland, piling costs onto already expensive projects.
Achieving scale makes offshore wind more practical
The ultimate goal of the North Sea Power Hub is to centralize and standardize the far-flung operations of multiple wind farms. This creates economies of scale that make offshore wind much more practical.
Of course, significant challenges must be worked out. Building an island in the middle of an active fishery is bound to bring scrutiny from regulators and the fisheries industry — though at first glance it appears the island would be a mere speck in comparison to the overall size of Dogger Bank.
Wind energy is clean and sustainable, and open-ocean has the strongest winds. These twin forces make offshore wind one of Europe’s best candidates for meeting its ambitious goal of shrinking greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent (from 1990 levels) over the next 30 years. That’s all the more reason to cheer the emergence of innovative offshore wind projects like the one proposed in Dogger Bank.
Related stories:
- Analytics: Measurement Means Everything to the Future of Offshore Wind
- Market Opportunities for Offshore Wind: What Does the Future Hold?
- Challenges in the Installation and Repair of Offshore Wind Turbines
- Damage to Subsea Cables a Huge Risk to Offshore Wind Farms
May 1, 2017, is the scheduled cutover date for the Block Island Wind Farm, whose five turbines will begin transmitting up to 30 megawatts of wind-generated power to the mainland power grid. The towers are arranged near Block Island, a tourist destination off the coast of Rhode Island that has about a thousand permanent residents.
At full strength, the turbines can power about 17,000 homes. They can supply up to 90 percent of Block Island’s energy needs, and surplus power can be transmitted to the U.S. power grid. Connecting the farm to the mainland power grid was the final step in a process that took most of a decade: seven years of regulatory approvals followed by two years of construction.
May 1 marks a victory for Deepwater Wind, the company that spearheaded the $300 million project. Based in Providence, Rhode Island, the company hopes to develop wind farms off the coasts of New York, Massachusetts, Maryland, and New Jersey.
All eyes will be on Block Island
Offshore is the last frontier for wind power in the United States, which has over 52,000 land-based wind turbines. Though the U.S. has ample shoreline for marine-based wind power, it hasn’t had much appetite for wind turbines posted in coastal waters.
That could change, though, depending on the success of the Block Island project. Ostensibly, the project aimed to help the island’s residents end their reliance on dirty, expensive diesel-powered generators. But the bigger-picture issue is whether the lessons of Block Island can help people find economical ways to develop offshore wind in the years to come.
Construction of the five towers began in the spring of 2015 and wrapped up in the fourth quarter of 2016 — on time and within budget, according to news reports. Given that wind farm technology is mature in Europe, which has over 3,000 offshore wind turbines, it’s no surprise that construction went pretty much as expected.
News reports said the turbines did fine during a coastal storm in March 2017 that produced winds of more than 70 mph. The true test will be how well the towers fare during hurricane season, when sustained winds above 100 mph can have disastrous consequences. The turbine’s blades can be feathered to protect against furious winds, but it’ll take a real hurricane to test their stormworthiness.
What’s ahead for U.S. offshore wind
At 600 feet high, the Block Island wind turbines are designed to capture stronger winds at higher altitudes. Future designs may be as high as 800 feet or more.
Deepwater Wind plans to build wind farms about 15 miles from the shoreline, where winds are stronger and the towers are less obtrusive to the eye. And developers are working on offshore platforms that could situate wind farms far out of sight of land, potentially silencing complaints that the towers ruin coastal views.
What we can’t see is how the social, political and economic winds will blow. These projects require years of financial and regulatory haggling. If fossil fuel costs remain low, investment dollars may be hard to come by. And the political climate could make it harder to get more wind farm projects approved.
The case for getting offshore wind into the mix
We have no illusions that renewables like wind and solar power will replace fossil fuels like petroleum and natural gas in the near future. But we do believe there’s much more room for renewables in the U.S. energy portfolio.
The U.S. is one of the largest contributors to the greenhouse gases that are warming the planet and causing climate change. That creates an obligation to apply the lessons of land-based wind power to the needs of offshore wind farms, and to learn from the experience of developers in Europe and Asia.
It’s true that offshore wind is expensive. The question is whether the cost of neglecting this resource will be even higher.
Related articles:
Server farms are increasingly crucial to the success of wind farms — offshore and otherwise. Data scientists armed with cloud-hosted analytics applications and tower-based telemetry can track every minute in the life of a wind turbine.
This is especially crucial in the rugged offshore environment, where storms, corrosion, sea life and everyday wear and tear test the survival of offshore wind turbines.
Today we’ll take a quick look at why analytics — the sciences of measurement and analysis — are so important to the evolution of offshore wind power.
Data science and predictive maintenance
Thanks to innovations in data science and cloud computing, wind farm operations can create complex models that cross-reference and correlate the effects of wind, weather, and wear in ways that were unimaginable a decade ago.
The great challenge with offshore wind comes down to trimming the massive installation costs and preventing costly equipment breakdowns. With improvements in analytics-driven predictive maintenance, offshore wind installations will get even better at tracking when key parts are due to fail and replacing them before an expensive breakdown.
The benefits of this deep dive into data analysis are two-fold: trimming operating costs, and showing system designers the best opportunities for higher efficiencies in upcoming generations of towers and turbines.
Land-based wind power is already price-competitive with mainstream energy sources in many markets. Precise analytics will be one of the keys to helping offshore wind farms equal that performance.
Wind-monitoring devices
The Belgium-based Offshore Wind Infrastructure (OWI) Application Lab is testing a broad range of technologies to help offshore wind operators exploit the advantages of advanced data science.
One of their experiments proved that a floating platform can use LIDAR (light detection and ranging) devices to track offshore wind patterns. Essentially, it’s the same technology police use to nab speeding drivers: Pointing a laser beam at a specific area and measuring the motion in the area where the light beam hits.
LIDAR is excellent measurement technology on land. But making it work on water has been cost-prohibitive, OWI Application Lab says. That’s why the successful test of a floating LIDAR, or FLIDAR, prototype a few years back was such welcome news.
“The profitability of offshore wind farms depends heavily on the ability to predict and deliver maximum power output at competitive costs,” OWI Application Lab says. “Reaching this optimum first requires an in-depth knowledge of the wind resource.”
With analytics, windfarm operators can fold extra-precise wind measurements into their overall operating models to make even better predictions about the lifespans of their turbines.
Measuring the prospects of offshore wind
At PMI, we know the benefits of using advanced technologies to create products tough enough to withstand the attacks of weather and corrosion at sea. Science and engineering make it possible for to build some of the world’s best subsea cable accessories.
That’s why we’re so optimistic about the prospects of analytics and data science to make renewables like offshore wind more price competitive in the years to come. In a warming world, it can’t happen too soon.
Related articles:
Why the U.S. Should Embrace Offshore Wind
Are Cable Issues Undermining Offshore Wind Success?
Market Opportunities for Offshore Wind: What Does the Future Hold?
If you follow the evolution of marine energy like we do, you’re bound to see references to marine biogeography.
We’ve come to see why marine biogeography will play a crucial role in the development of offshore wind and other marine-energy sources.
The basics on marine biogeography
What is marine biogeography, and why does it matter to the renewables industry?
Biogeography the is mapping of living things. It helps scientists and researchers document the life cycles of plants and animals in specific regions within defined time periods. Biogeography reveals the health of ecosystems where people plan to build things. And it helps target areas for restoration of threatened species.
Biogeography offers a path to cleaner ocean energy development
Wind farms and marine-energy developments represent the bright future of the sustainable energy industry. But to truly be sustainable, they must be able to produce power without significant damage to marine ecosystems.
Our oceans are already under considerable stress from overfishing, pollution, and climate change. Sustainable energy projects cannot add to that environmental toll. Fortunately, marine biogeography has the tools and techniques we need to ensure cleaner, safer development of ocean-energy projects.
How marine biogeography works
Marine biogeography produces a visual representation of a subsea biome. It creates a three-dimensional image revealing mountains, valleys, trenches, flatlands, continental shelfs, reefs, and anything else on the ocean floor. And it shows the species of plants and animals living there.
The process of marine biogeography works like this:
- A research ship travels to an area to be studied.
- Multibeam radar scans the ocean floor to document its topography. It sends out about 1,500 radar “soundings” per second, capturing every contour.
- Split-beam sonar scans for any fish in the area.
- Remotely operated vehicles photograph the area to confirm everything that came up on the radar.
- Computers interpret the soundings and create 3D images revealing the shape of the ocean bottom and the native flora and fauna.
Note, this is not a one-time process: Because so many animals migrate and humans change the oceans constantly, marine biogeography must be repeated several times before scientists can truly understand the ecosystems they are studying.
Hawaii: Marine biogeography in action
Hawaii has abundant sunshine and oceans on every side, making it a prime locale for renewables like solar and offshore wind.
U.S. government researchers are teaming up with local scientists and other experts to study the ecological impact of installing windfarms in the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii. Biogeographic studies will help them identify the places where a windfarm would do the least damage to sea life.
Offshore wind is more than a cool idea in Hawaii: Islanders pay the highest electricity costs in the United States because their primary fossil-fuel energy sources must be transported across thousands of miles of ocean. The state hopes to get all its energy from renewable sources like wind and solar by the year 2040, cutting its dependence on fossil fuels.
Potential impacts of wind farm development
We’ve already written about the environmental impacts of marine energy projects. A wind farm requires several large, concrete bases installed on the sea floor. Building these will affect life at the construction sites, but that is temporary for the most part.
There’s also the challenge of laying transmission cables from the towers to the mainland. These must be buried beneath the sea floor, creating another potential disruption.
And there’s the issue of underwater structures encouraging the formation of new reefs — and inviting in invasive reef species that crowd out native life.
Marine biogeography will help wind farm developers identify migration routes, spawning beds and other things that sea life must have to survive.
Marine biogeography will help map the future of ocean energy
Ocean-energy developers are bound to be told things they do not want to hear, thanks to marine biogeography. But ultimately, they need to know if whales are migrating through the middle of their development projects. The sooner they know, the better.
Of course, we have more than a rooting interest in marine energy at PMI. All these projects need cables for mooring and power transmission, and our premium cable accessories are designed precisely for these kinds of projects.
In sum, we like what we’re seeing from the field of marine biogeography. It’s good for our oceans, which makes it good for everybody.
The third of four Ramform Titan-class vessels, the Ramform Tethys, was celebrated in a naming ceremony at the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Shipbuilding Co. yard in Nagasaki, Japan today.
PGS’ two first Ramform Titan-class vessels, the Ramform Titan and the Ramform Atlas were delivered in 2013 and 2014 and have delivered beyond expectations on all aspects, especially within safety, efficiency and productivity.
The Ramform Tethys, and the Ramform Hyperion, will be even better due to small modifications of equipment handling on the back deck and an increase in engine power to 26 400 kW from 23 040 kW on the first two Ramform Titan-class vessels.
“With the increased power output and the back deck modifications we are enhancing the Ramform Titan-class acquisition platform further. Productivity, safety, stability and redundancy are the key benefits of these vessels. Their ability to tow many streamers gives high data quality with dense cross-line sampling and cost efficient acquisition with wide tows,” says Per Arild Reksnes, EVP Operations.
The Ramform Tethys is the most powerful and efficient marine seismic acquisition vessel in the world, and along with the Ramform Titan and Ramform Atlas, the widest ships ever at the waterline.
The design dovetails advanced maritime technology to the imaging capabilities of the GeoStreamer® seismic acquisition technology. Her 70 meter broad stern is fully exploited with 24 streamer reels: 16 reels aligned abreast and 8 reels further forward, with capacity for 12 kilometer streamers on each reel. With such capabilities the Ramform Tethys has tremendous flexibility and redundancy for high capacity configurations. Increased work space and advanced equipment handling mean safer and even more robust operations. The Ramform concept design is made by Roar Ramde.
She carries over 6 000 tons of fuel and equipment. She will typically tow a network of several hundred thousand recording sensors over an area greater than 12 square kilometers, equivalent to nearly 1 200 soccer pitches, or 3.5 times Central Park.
For PGS and its clients, more rapid deployment and retrieval of equipment, as well as greater operational capacity will translate into faster completion of surveys and increased uptime in marginal weather. The period between major yard stays is also extended by approximately 50%.
The Ramform Tethys sets the new standard for seismic operations for the next 25 years.
Jon Erik Reinhardsen, President and CEO of PGS states in a comment: “The Ramform Tethys further strengthens our fleet productivity and together with the other Ramform Titan-class vessels will enhance our competitive edge. In the current challenging market environment we also experience more demand for our best capacity and Ramform Tethys will add to PGS ultra-high-end value proposition.”
NOTE: Pictures and more facts on the Ramform Tethys are available on www.pgs.com
For details, contact:
Bård Stenberg, VP IR & Corporate Communications
Mobile: +47 992 45 235
Synthetic cable is stronger than steel on a strength-to-weight basis, which makes it an attractive option in marine environments. The key challenge of synthetic cable is what you do about the attachment points, or terminations.
Terminations can cut the tensile strength of synthetic cable by more than 50 percent, potentially defeating the purpose of going with synthetic to begin with. However, a well-designed and properly installed termination can preserve more than 75 percent of the cable’s strength.
The termination must be installed by the manufacturer of the termination. It can’t be installed like a traditional steel termination can. That means if you’re ordering a volume of synthetic fiber cable, you need to ship it to your cable accessory supplier and have them cut your cable to length and attach the terminations.
Once the termination is in place, it’s there permanently. It cannot be removed. Hence it pays to be careful about your choice of synthetic cable termination provider.
Getting it Right with Synthetic Cable Terminations
Synthetic cables have a vast range of uses in subsea environments. They can do high-tech jobs like protecting fiber optic cables that transmit data around the world. Or they can do more mundane tasks like holding floating platforms in place.
Each of these jobs require terminations and other accessories that are engineered specifically to get the most performance out of the cable and preserve its strength at the attachment point.
At PMI, we’ve worked with clients in the subsea cable sector for decades, so we know exactly how to apply the right termination for each application. We have the specialized equipment required to perform synthetic terminations, and we have people trained to make sure the attachment is done properly.
And, of course, we supply some of the world’s best subsea cable terminations for all these varied applications.
Synthetic cables are less prone to corrosion and much more flexible and easy to use in chaotic marine environments. Many of them even float. But their unique chemical composition requires extra care at the termination point. Ignoring this risk could easily undo your entire investment in synthetic cables.