WHAT'S HAPPENING ON SITE
Onshore converter station
Kier Infrastructure, contracted to GE's Grid Solutions, has been onsite since spring 2022 readying it for the installation of the converter station's state-of-the-art electrical infrastructure. Work is making visible leaps forward with the framework for the valve hall and control building now standing tall. There are ongoing concrete pours for the foundations for the electrical equipment that is to come, plus drainage installation and cable ducting to connect all the electrical equipment to the control building.
Sofia is keen to minimise disruption to those living nearest the site and part of this has involved re-shaping the northern of two mounds that separate the converter stations’ site from Lazenby Village. As well as being reshaped, it has also been planted with trees, shrubs and wildflowers. The second phase of reshaping, on the southern mound, is now underway. The reshaped mounds will be an improved barrier to the construction activity and will visually screen the two new converter stations and the Wilton International site.
400kV AC cable route
A second GE contractor, VolkerInfra is also now onsite and has stripped the topsoil and begun duct installation for the two-kilometre 400kV AC cable route from the converter station to the National Grid substation at Lackenby.
Cable route
The onshore civil engineering work for the export cable route is also now well underway. J. Murphy & Sons Ltd. has completed the topsoil strip, excavation for trenching and most of the duct installation in readiness for the project’s export cables to be pulled through. There is one section of the cable corridor, under the railway bridge, where tunnelling will be used. That work is set to take place in spring/summer 2023.
Regular drone surveys of the converter station and both cable corridors will be carried out throughout the works to monitor progress.
Landfall
At the landfall the teams are working on the one-kilometre horizontal directional drills from the construction compound opposite the beach near Marske-by-the-Sea, Teesside. Drilling work was on hold over winter but the site remobilises for the final drills to take place between March and May 2023.