Danish power cable maker and services provider NKT has concluded a turnkey repair of one of the 220 kV high-voltage AC subsea export cables connecting the Beatrice offshore wind farm in the Scottish Moray Firth to the Aberdeenshire coast.
The repair was executed in 38 days, according to NKT, which was hired for the repair job following an unplanned transmission outage that occurred in April 2025 on one of two of Beatrice’s Transmission Capital Partner (TCP) owned export cables.
The malfunction reduced the site’s export capacity by 50%, affecting the transmission of renewable electricity for around 450,000 U.K. households.
The cable, which was not manufactured by NKT, was repaired using NKT’s adaptive rigid sea joint (ARSJ). Central to the swift turnkey repair were two of those joints, which were mobilized from NKT’s stock within days.
The joints are designed to work with most high-voltage subsea AC cables from 110kV to 300kV, regardless of manufacturer, making them ideal for emergency repairs where compatible spare parts are unavailable or could not be used.
The repair was executed using NKT’s cable handling system, which transforms standard construction vessels into fully equipped cable repair vessels. In this case, the system was deployed aboard the North Sea Giant from Ocean Installer.
The cable handling system was designed to have a compact footprint and broad cable compatibility, allowing for rapid mobilization.
Within just six days, the North Sea Giant was mobilized in Eemshaven and later loaded with the customer’s spare cable.
Located approximately 13.5 km off the Caithness coast in Scotland with two export cables, each about 70 km long, running from the offshore site to the landfall near Portgordon, Scotland.
With an installed capacity of 588 MW, Beatrice Offshore wind farm is one of Scotland’s largest offshore wind installations.
Beatrice is operated by SSE Renewables on behalf of a joint venture partnership between SSE Renewables (40%), Red Rock Renewables (25%), The Renewables Infrastructure Group (17.5%) and Equitix (17.5%).