INTERVIEW: Nexans supplying first US-made subsea cable for a US offshore wind power project

Nexans is in the process of delivering the first US-made subsea cable for a US offshore wind power project, as before this cables were sent from facilities in Europe, an executive said in a recent interview.

"We have secured the first cable aboard the vessel and it will be laid soon," Ragnhild Katteland, executive vice president of generation and transmission at Nexans, said in the video interview. "So, we are delivering the first subsea offshore cable for a wind farm in the US market and also the first offshore wind farm in New York, so it's exciting."

Nexans is a French cable technologies and services company.

The cable will be delivered to the 130-MW South Fork Wind project being developed as part of a 50/50 joint venture between Denmark's Ørsted and US-based Eversource Energy. New York's first offshore wind farm will include 12 turbines located 35 miles east of Montauk Point, with the underground transmission line delivering power to the local grid in the Town of East Hampton.

South Fork Wind is expected to be completed by the end of this year.

The cables are being built at Nexans' Charleston, South Carolina facility -- a plant that will be manufacturing the cables for Nexans' upcoming US projects like the Empire Wind project and Revolution Wind.

Equinor and BP's 816-MW Empire Wind 1 project is expected to become operational in 2026 when it connects to the electricity grid at the Gowanus Substation in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. Equinor and BP's 1,260-MW Empire Wind 2 project is expected to be online in 2027, connecting to the power grid at the Barrett Substation on Long Island.

The Revolution Wind project, also an Eversource-Ørsted 50/50 JV, will supply 704 MW to Rhode Island and Connecticut, tying into the New England power grid in North Kingston, Rhode Island. It is expected to be operational by 2025.

The "load out" for South Fork is happening over the course of the next few weeks and should be complete by the end of the month or early April, Nexans said.

The South Carolina facility can be used for supplying cables for offshore wind projects or can support supply and installation, as is being done for Revolution Wind, Katteland said.

It depends "from project to project" what the developers need, and which of Nexans' services would be most useful, she said.

The industry is following offshore wind project demand versus capacity and Nexans works to be "proactive," Katteland said.

One of the biggest challenges for US offshore wind projects appears to be on the permitting side and not as much on the supply chain side of the business at this point, she said.

Revolution Wind 2

Ørsted and Eversource said March 13 they submitted a joint proposal in response to Rhode Island's offshore wind solicitation, offering to develop the proposed 884-MW Revolution Wind 2 project.

In addition to Revolution Wind, the state's first utility-scale offshore wind farm, Revolution Wind 2 would help advance the state's 100% clean energy by 2033 climate goal.

Having just submitted their proposal, no supplier decisions have been made yet, a Revolution Wind 2 spokesperson said via email.

The South Fork Wind cable is the first US-made offshore wind export cable to be installed in US and that cable installation is happening "over the next few weeks," the spokesperson confirmed.