Energy export: booming underwater electric cables

The intermittent nature of renewable energies and current chaos on the energy markets highlight the importance of companies that connect electricity producers to distant consumers.

Source: The Economisttradu by readers of the Les-Cises site

[The Clv Nexans Aurora is a specially designed cable car, equipped with the most advanced cable installation tools in the world, NDT]

Imagine a toy boat that could hold in the palm of your hand.In the middle of the boat, add a coil of low height sewing wire placed on the side.Multiply all by a thousand and you get the Nexans Aurora, 150 meters long.The thread in question consists of kilometers of high voltage power lines ready to be deployed from the back of the ship to the seabed.Each cable, which weighs 150 kg per meter is as thick as a tree trunk, and is composed of a mixed mixture of aluminum, steel, lead and insulating material.A single section of cable rolled up in a coil almost 30 meters in diameter is as heavy as the Eiffel Tower..

The way we consume electricity (more and more, especially because of cars) and which it is produced (more and more, in particular thanks to renewable sources, see Chart 1) is changing.In the energy sector, it is never easy to balance supply and demand, as shown by chaos that reigns in European gas markets.It is even more complex for electricity, whose storage is more delicate than that, not only gas, but also coal, diesel or wood chips.Renewable energies add additional difficulties: the wind blows hazardously, the sun can be hidden behind the clouds or absent at night.Consequently, most of the electricity produced must be consumed immediately, and essentially where it is produced.

The idea of separating consumption from production for a while - using giant batteries or other storage means - has aroused a lot of interest from entrepreneurs, policies and investors.But it is currently impracticable on a large scale.This is the reason why the idea of separating the two into space wins from the field.This therefore requires an upgrading of invisible wiring that transports energy from its place of production to its place of use.This operation can for example involve the connection of an offshore wind farm in the network.Connections are also necessary to join national networks, often within blocks where most current electrical transactions are carried out, such as the European Union.

In one case as in the other, cables are necessary, as are boats to install a part.The potential is huge.Only 4.3 % of electricity produced in 2018 by OECD members, an industrialized country club, was exported, against 2 % in the 1970s, but we are far from a fungible raw material like theoil.

All these elements have arranged the command notebooks of manufacturers and cable installers like Nexans, the eponymous French owner of Nexans Aurora.Bank Crédit Switzerland provides that underwater wiring alone will bring about 5.5 billion euros ($ 6.4 billion) in 2022, against 4.5 billion euros this year.He expects the income of wiring companies in relation to offshore wind facilities do more than triple between 2020 and 2035.The enthusiasm of investors for electric cables has increased the stock price of Nexans and the two other European giants in the sector, NKT and Prysmian, from 48 to 125 % in the past two years (see Chart 2).In February, Nexans announced that it will soon be separating from its production activity of non -electric cables (intended for industry and data centers) to focus on the production of cables.

Responding to a request for sawtooth electricity is a complex but well -known task.British network managers have long since known how to trigger power plants just when the television series end and when viewers are lacking in tea in their kettle.We are exactly in front of the same problem when it comes to connecting electrical networks whose modes of both production and different consumption, which amounts to matching supply and demand by transferring electricity remotely.

Take the case of Denmark.Here is a country that has installed enough wind turbines so that when the wind blows, no other source of electrical energy is necessary.But, given the inconstancy of the wind, it needs a plan B.Battery faults, it could certainly keep the old central fossil combustible centrals, and use them intermittently.A more elegant solution is to install a cable to Norway, which has a large hydroelectric potential.When the wind blows, the two countries can use Danish wind energy and keep Norwegian water in deductions.In calm weather, Norwegian lakes are emptied a little faster to help Denmark.

In addition, new links between Denmark and the Netherlands, Sweden, Germany and Great Britain (planned for 2023) offer even more possibilities.If we add enough connections to a sufficient number of places, electricity becomes negotiable goods.For a local network manager, the reduction of carbon emissions becomes a simple question of buying and selling the right contract rather than building a solar or wind park in the wrong place.

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This perspective explains why interconnections are multiplying.Europe is the new border of the laying of cables.Electrification, provided in particular by renewable energies, is one of the essential pillars in its ambition to reach "zero" emissions by 2050.National networks have been forced by EU rules to merge into a single network, often supported by public funds.The chopped ribs of the continent are ideal for wind energy and for the deployment of electric cables at sea, out of sight of those who could oppose it.

Changes in the dynamics of electricity production play a role.Germany, for example, which was once a large exporter of electricity, is becoming an importer as it finalizes the closure of its nuclear power plants and gradually abandons coal.Green pressure also means that electricity is often produced in inappropriate places.In Italy, power plants were built near industrial sites, mainly in the north of the country.Today, the wind blows and the sun shines mainly in the south, less developed."The transition to renewable energies means that we need more to worry about rebalancing, transition," says Stefano Antonio Donnarumma de Terna, Italian manager of electric transport lines.

Consequently, the manufacture and deployment of electric cables is one of the few industrial sectors where European dominant European companies.Besides Nexans who is French, Prysmian is Italian and Nkt is Danish.They hold around 80% market share outside China, where demand is largely satisfied locally.They do not just make woven metal wires (among other products), they also put them, putting on service and operating ships like the Nexans Aurora, a ship of 170 million euros armed and equipped upstream of aexisting Nexans factory, in Halden, Norway.

The progress made in the installation of underwater cables have contributed to opening the perspective of new unpublished interconnections.While previous generations of ships were likely to capsize if they were to place cables at a depth much greater than 1,200 meters, the Nexans Aurora and a flotilla of similar ships in its competitors can place the cables at depths of 3,000 meters.(An accompanying robot can dig a trench when the waters are less deep, in order to better protect themselves from wandering anchors and fishing nets).This means that the Mediterranean is now accessible.This week, Nexans Aurora was about to deploy its first cable, connecting the island of Crete to the Greek continent.

Longer cables, about 100 km, also mean fewer sections to assemble.The feasibility of much longer interconnections is therefore envisaged.A 720 km link between Norway and Great Britain was put in service this month.Many other projects are under project, for example to connect Greece and Israel, or Ireland and France.Others are more speculation, such as a 3,800 km cable connecting the sunny sunscreens of Morocco to Great Britain.Another consortium wants to link Australia, Indonesia and Singapore, which would represent a 4,200 km project.

According to Christopher Guérin, boss of Nexans, 72,000 km of cables of this type will be installed by 2030, seven times the current stock.This figure is added to the cables necessary to modernize the dilapidated terrestrial connections, many of which have exceeded their lifespan.The blackout crisis that has occurred in Texas at the start of the year has unlocked recovery funds for the modernization of the electrical network in the United States also.

The connection of wind farms to land electrical networks is a more immediate perspective.Cable sellers are all the more enthusiastic since more and more installations of this type are developed on the high seas.The possibility of floating wind farms, which could be even more distant, will grow their order notebooks.The International Energy Agency, the energy club of rich countries, estimates that 80 gigawatts of offshore wind farms will have to be installed each year by 2030 to achieve the objectives of decarbonation.According to Max Yates of Credit Suisse, each gigawatt of offshore capacity requires around 250 million euros in cables, installation included.The cable costs about as much as the foundations, arriving just behind the cost of the wind turbine itself.

The urgency of this global rewriting effort is almost imperceptible from the Nexans Aurora bridge.The coils release their thread at a quiet pace: we consider that 10 to 12 km per day, it's well done work.But future energy highways finally become a reality.We advance at a cruise rate.

Source: The Economist, 16-10-2021

Translated by the readers of the Les-Cises site

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