Since the end of September TenneT has been working hard to get the COBRAcable up and running as soon as possible after a failure in the cable was discovered. The last few weeks, a team has been working at a vessel at sea. The cable was cut at a depth of 40 metres on the seabed and lifted. On both sides of the cut cable, the cable was measured 200 metres long to find the exact fault location.
The piece of cable where the fault has been located was removed. A new piece of cable has been installed and reconnected to the cable. The last few days, the cable has been successfully tested and laid back, buried two metres deep in the seabed. The COBRAcable connection is back in operation on Friday 8th, which means that the 700 MW connection can be used again to transport electricity between Denmark and the Netherlands.
About COBRAcable (COpenhagen-BRussels-Amsterdam cable)
COBRAcable is a 320 kV, 700 MW HVDC submarine power cable pair between Eemshaven, the Netherlands and Endrup near Esbjerg, Denmark. The cable is jointly owned by Energinet.dk and TenneT. Its purpose is to improve the European transmission grid and thus increase the amount of variable wind power in the system while improving supply reliability.
The interconnector has a length of 325 kilometres (202 miles), consists of two parallel cables each with a diameter of 13 cm (5.1 in) and includes fiber-optic communication. The connection has been designed in such a way as to enable the connection of an offshore wind farm at a later stage. This contributes to the realisation of a sustainable international energy landscape, a key aim of the European Union.
