Red Eléctrica de España has started this Monday the work of laying the new 132 kV electrical interconnection between the new Playa Blanca and La Oliva substations, in Fuerteventura.
The future link will improve "decisively" the security and quality of supply of the two islands, will facilitate their progress in the energy transition, will contribute to maximize the evacuation of renewable energy in safe conditions for the system and will reduce the dependence on fossil fuels and CO2 emissions in Lanzarote and Fuerteventura.
Once the recognition and preparation of the route through which the submarine laying will take place according to the planned route has been carried out, the "connection of the electric cable with the Lanzarote splicing chamber" has been carried out and, subsequently, the cable ship Leonardo Da Vinci has started the laying maneuvers, of 14.5 km, which is estimated to last 10 days if weather conditions are favorable. Subsequently, "the protection of the submarine cable will be carried out for 1 month".
The Director General of Energy of the Government of the Canary Islands, Rosa Ana Melián Domínguez, the Mayor of Yaiza, Óscar Noda, the Director of Investment and Transport Management Projects of Red Eléctrica, Ramón Granadino Goenechea, the Project Director of Red Electrica, Antonio Sanz Ayllón and the delegate of Red Eléctrica in the Canary Islands, Ainara Irigoyen Zarragoicoechea, attended the monitoring of the works today.
As detailed by Red Eléctrica, this new interconnection, which involves an investment of 36 million euros and whose commissioning is scheduled for the first quarter of 2022, consists of a simple high-voltage circuit in alternating current of 120 MVA of power and 132 kV of voltage.
The new interconnection reinforces the existing one between the two islands, which was put into service in 2005, and which transports electrical energy at 66 kV in alternating current, which allowed to form an electrical system that currently has 476 MW of installed conventional and renewable power. Thanks to the future link and the redundancy it provides to the interconnection, the robustness of the electrical system in both islands is reinforced and its possibilities and maintenance conditions are improved, also eliminating generation restrictions.
Previous and laying works
Prior to the start of the laying of the submarine cable, the two underground land sections have been executed both in Lanzarote and Fuerteventura. In addition, they detail that for access to the sea, the technique of directed drilling has been used in both islands in order to protect the cables near the coast and to minimize the impact on the beaches and the coastal strip.
From Red Eléctrica they also explain that environmental, geophysical and geotechnical prospecting works have been carried out throughout the route of the submarine cable and in the land areas to the two connection substations (one in Lanzarote and another in Fuerteventura), "to detect the areas of greater environmental quality and thus design a route that minimizes the effects on the land and marine environment".
Attending to the remarkable richness in biodiversity existing in both islands, the different types of seabed were also mapped; "a high-precision bathymetric map was made to determine the depths in the area; the currents, the quality of the water and sediments and the biological state of the communities of fauna and flora present were studied".
With the works that begin this Monday, "the correct positioning of the cable on the seabed is guaranteed thanks to the monitoring with a remotely controlled vehicle and its subsequent burial in the sandy bottoms", for which a technique using pressurized water jets is used in most of the route. In other sections, where the seabed is rocky, a trench will be executed by means of an underwater robot that will later be covered with the extracted materials. All this will be complemented with the protection of the cables by means of "metallic shells".
The submarine electrical interconnection between Lanzarote and Fuerteventura is one of the first works of the cable ship Leonardo Da Vinci, one of the most modern in the world, and which came into operation last August, joining the fleet of latest generation vessels of the Prysmian Group, world leader in the sector of cable systems for energy and telecommunications.