wiredinUSA September 2012

INDEX

Cable-laying ship damaged by fire

Zurich chooses homegrown cabling

Export cable lands at Gwynt y Môr

Dominican Republic’s first PV power plant

Zurich is using fiber-optic and copper cabling systems from Datwyler in the conversion and construction of its data centers. Contractor TurnKey Commu- nications AG is deploying the “largely pre-assembled” cables in two data centers, with an estimated total of links of around 10,000. As part of a standardization and consoli- dation initiative, the city’s Zurich Organisa- tion and Informatics (OIZ) group has built a second data center in the metropolitan area, in the industrial area of Hagenholz, to create redundant resources in parallel with those for the existing data center in Albisrieden. TurnKey collaborated with Datwyler in selecting the cables. The 10G-capable copper cabling installed in parallel consists of category 7 type CU 7702 4P data cables and IEC standard- compliant cat. 6a RJ-45 modules, pre- assembled to one end. The other end was terminated on-site. For the termination of the copper cables Datwyler supplied 135 3U sub-racks with 1160 modular six-port front panels and 285 1U panels with 24 ports. Datwyler also supplied 13,300 fiber-optic duplex and 9,100 copper patch cables for the connection of active devices.

Global Marine Systems Energy Ltd (GME) has landed the first export cable at the Gwynt y Môr Offshore Wind Farm, situated in Liverpool Bay, off the coast of North Wales. The cable was landed by GME’s recently launched vessel, Cable Enterprise , and is the first of four export cables to be installed at the project site. Each of the export cables are between 18km and 22km in length. Gwynt y Môr Offshore Wind Farm is one of the largest currently in construction in Europe and is being built by RWE npower renewables. Once operational, Gwynt y Môr will have an installed capacity of 576MW. The wind farm is due for completion in 2014 with 160 turbines producing enough electricity to supply 400,000 homes. Unlike traditional vessels, the Enterprise is designed to ground on the beach, allowing operations to be carried out to the high water mark, seamlessly continuing the installation where shore- based vehicles finish.

In mid-August a ship built to provide subsea cable laying, the Chamarel , caught fire off Namibia’s Atlantic coast. The fire started as the ship was returning from repairing a Sat3-Safe cable network that stretches between Portugal and Spain to West Africa, and then to India and Malaysia. The Chamarel is owned by France- Telecom Orange and has laid over 100,000km of fiber-optic cables since 1975, including AT&T’s TAT 6 cables between Rhode Island and France and TAT 7 cables between New Jersey and England. The ship has been responsible for repairing any cable breaks in the Atlantic and Indian oceans. Cable breakages, often caused by ship anchors and fishing trawlers, tend to occur in shallower waters. Though the Chamarel has been damaged by the fire, the 56 crew members were evacuated without injury. The cause of the fire is currently under investigation.

Isofoton SA and the government of the Dominican Republic have signed a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA). Isofoton will now begin construction of one of Latin America’s largest photovoltaic plants – the Dominican Republic’s first such installation. The plant will have a nominal power output of 44MW and a peak power output of 50.6MW. Construction of the plant at La Victoria, 15km from Santo Domingo, is anticipated to begin in September at a cost of $150 million. The environmental benefits are expected to be substantial, since the plant will generate 74,532.61MW/hours of solar power per year, equaling the estimated supply used by 58,411 families. CO 2 emissions will be reduced by 44,014.16 tons per year. Ángel Luis Serrano, Isofoton’s president, commented: “This will be a model plant in the Latin American continent, where the potential for growth in the photovoltaic sector is enormous. Latin America is one of the photovoltaic markets that will drive the use of renewable energy and Isofoton’s plant in the Dominican Republic, together with the one we will be starting up in Ecuador, will be one of the leaders driving this progress.”

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wiredInUSA - September 2012

wiredInUSA - September 2012

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