By Heather Andrade, Sales Director, Hydro Group Ltd
Hydro Group Ltd is a global solutions provider, designing, manufacturing and testing subsea umbilicals and connection systems for harsh environment applications within the defence and energy sectors. Since the turn of the Millenium, Hydro Group has been developing and building advanced and robust marine renewable energy solutions
The company was delighted to be chosen as a partner for the WEDUSEA project.
Operating from their state-of-the-art facility in Aberdeen Energy Park, Scotland, Hydro Group offer complete vertical integration with both cable, connector and assembly cells all based within the same premises. The facility includes product design, engineering and R&D departments, assembly workshops and testing zones. The extensive manufacturing floor features conductor insulating lines, cable lay-up machines, braiding and extrusion lines along with a cable armouring line necessary for the manufactured armoured dynamic umbilicals used in most renewable energy projects.
Hydro Group has developed various solutions for dry and wet-mate connectors, specifically for use within the Renewables Sector with its products deployed in a range of international floating wind, wave and tidal energy projects. These projects include Pempa’q Tidal Energy Project, Ocean Energy’s wave device at the US Navy Wave Test Site in Hawaii and the KRISO-WETS project in South Korea.
Continually developing new solutions, they recently participated in the European project Flotant. The scope was to develop and performance test mooring, anchoring systems and dynamic cables, in order to improve the cost-efficiency and robustness of solutions that will be deployed at between 100m to 600m water depths.
Our Role in the WEDUSEA Project
Hydro Group will be responsible for the design and manufacture of the dynamic umbilical and connection to the OceanEnergy OE35 device at EMEC’s Billia Croo wave test site in Orkney, Scotland. They will also assist during the installation and deployment phases to ensure the connection system is fully operational.
Hydro Group have already been involved in the design of the dynamic umbilical ensuring it meets all of the electrical and mechanical loading requirements of the device and the test site to ensure optimum performance during operation.
They will also be supplying their 36kV dry mate renewables connector to link the OE35 device to the existing export cable which will provide the link back to the grid. The 36kV/600A Hydro Renewable Connector (HRC) allows subsea connectivity with a device cable and an export cable in series, allowing two three-phase electrical cables to be deck-mated at sea without compromising the circuit before being submerged.
Previous experience with various global renewables projects will allow Hydro Group to offer support on site layout, component selection and connection methods and they will also assist in the disconnection at the end of the project.
The Importance of Net Zero
The transition to net-zero is an ambitious but necessary endeavour to combat climate change. It requires global collaboration and political will but businesses also play an important role by driving technological advancements to ensure new energy sources are commercially viable for the future. It is also incumbent on industry to adopt low-carbon processes, improve energy efficiency and implement circular economy models to minimise waste. Achieving net-zero is not only an environmental imperative; it also provides opportunities for innovation, job creation and improved public health.
Hydro Group are embracing this challenge head on with a range of companywide net-zero initiatives along with their continued focus on product development supporting the renewable energy market sector.
