The Offshore Wind Accelerator (OWA) has published a new report to inform industry on how to apply the Cable Burial Risk Assessment Guidance (CBRA), following its launch in 2015 .
The new Application Guide for the Specification of the Depth of Lowering using CBRA explains how the probabilistic methodology can be applied to real offshore projects based on actual experience from an operational wind farm. This will help designers use the CBRA Guidance to specify the Depth of Lowering and manage associated residual risks to reduce the installation and insurance costs for subsea cables, OWA said.
According to industry figures shared by specialist offshore underwriter GCube, over 80% of construction projects have resulted in a cable related incident, with over half of claims being attributed to incorrect installation and load out of cables.
Jacob Edmonds , DONG Energy Offshore Cable Installation-Project Development Department Manager, said: “We believe that the adoption of the CBRA methodology will lead to the optimisation of the Depth of Lowering specification and to cost savings in many risk scenarios, by avoiding unnecessary steps during installation of cables. Therefore we consider the application of CBRA an essential step towards optimising our future projects in general.”
Vito Persetto , Statkraft, Senior Cable Installation Engineer said: “The background work performed to define the input values has been reviewed and checked within the industry, with the aim to reflect state of the art and achieve alignment with best practices. This is considered key in order to establish trust in the methodology and for it to gain traction as the new industry standard way of defining the Depth of Lowering for subsea cables for offshore wind applications.”
As part of the OWA programme, the CBRA methodology has been developed by the Carbon Trust, together with DONG Energy and Statkraft, with contributions from Cathie Associates.