ScottishPower Renewables has completed what the company says was a record-breaking cable landfall operation for its 960 MW East Anglia Two offshore wind farm in the UK, installing two nearly 1.8-kilometre-long ducts beneath the Suffolk coastline and seabed for the project’s export cables.
The ducts, each measuring 800 millimetres in diameter, were installed using horizontal directional drilling (HDD), a technique that creates an underground passage without excavating beaches or disturbing the coastline directly. ScottishPower Renewables says the operation involved the world’s longest continuous single sections of extruded polyethylene (PE) ducts and represents the largest electricity transmission landfall of its kind in the UK, based on the combination of duct length and diameter.
Manufactured by Pipelife in Norway, the ducts were produced as single uninterrupted lengths, eliminating the need for welded joints. They will provide a protected route for the high-voltage export cables carrying electricity from the offshore wind farm to shore.
The landfall works form part of the project’s onshore civil engineering programme, led by OCU Group with support from its subsidiary Peter McCormack & Sons. ScottishPower Renewables said the operation also marked a manufacturing record for Pipelife, whose ducts measured approximately 1,793 metres each.
“The completion of this colossal HDD, which is three times the length of our other East Anglia projects, is a huge achievement – quite literally – and a major milestone as we progress construction of our third windfarm in the region”, said Ross Ovens, ScottishPower Renewables’ Managing Director for Offshore.
“Landfall works are known to be one of the most technically challenging aspects of building an offshore windfarm, but thanks to precision planning and a great partnership with our principal contactor OCU Group and duct manufacturer Pipelife, this programme has well and truly hit the mark – breaking UK and world records in the process.”
The milestone comes as East Anglia Two advances towards offshore construction, with the first export cable expected to be installed in summer 2027, and commercial operation targeted for late 2028.
The 960 MW offshore wind farm will be built at a site in the southern North Sea, around 33 kilometres off the Suffolk coast at its nearest point, where 64 Siemens Gamesa SG 14-236 DD wind turbines will be installed on monopile foundations.