Viking Link Connecting British and Danish power grids

   The vision: 

Balfour Beatty announces that it has been awarded a £90 million contract to deliver the British onshore civils works for the Viking Link Interconnector Project on behalf of joint venture delivery partners, National Grid and Energinet. 

The project will form part of the wider 765 kilometres Viking Link which will supply sustainable electricity for 1.4 million homes in Great Britain and improve the security of electricity supply in both countries. The Viking Link will also contribute to the UK Government’s carbon reduction commitment to reduce all greenhouse emissions to net zero by 2050, by providing access to a well-developed, low-cost renewable energy market. 

Micron have been giving the honours of partnering Balfour Beatty in proving the world’s largest Interconnect.  We were engaged to provide Fibre optic cabling services which consisted of Blowing fibre (c300k to date), Fusion Splicing all fibres optic cables, PMD testing and traditional testing every circuit providing detailed reports and qualification of the circuits.

The project did come with its challenges, the ducting installed was direct buried and when tested had a lot of air egress, resulting in near impossible environments for blowing fibres over such long distances, This needed an out of the box solution. Not wanting to be beat we researched other potential techniques and after many hours of consultation with our partners decided on “Fibre Floating” this is a new technique for the UK markets. After more research and obtaining / forging the correct equipment needed, we set about the new process. It was a success. 

We managed to float the difficult sections through and all the while enhancing our approach, re-developing the tools. 

This has been a great project and opportunity for us to be a part of, we have taken so many learnings, and enabled our team to really showcase our experience, tenacity and grow. 

The project is still on-going but we are nearing completion, the collaborative efforts from all involved has been a privilege to have been a part of.