CABLE INSTALLATION -
TURITEA SOUTH WIND FARM

Location: Palmerston North region

Service: Wind farm cable installation

Date started: March 2022

Date completed: November 2022

Scope of work

Turitea South Wind Farm is located in the Tararua Ranges above Palmerston North. This will be New Zealand’s largest wind farm, with a total capacity of 222MW (North and South combined).

Downer needed to trench 23km to install cables in trefoil formation to connect the turbines on Turitea South Wind Farm.

They decided to use Marais Laying NZ’s services to trench and install the cables in the trench.

Trenching must be performed in the roads going from the substation to each turbine and the client wanted a narrow trench – 350 x 1,050cm (up to 1,500cm).

For this project, we are using the Vestas V112 turbine, which measures 125m from base to rotor tip.

Challenges

Marais Laying NZ proposed the use of a trenching machine named ST2, combined with two other machines - a wrapping machine to maintain the trefoil and the cable trailer to carry the 3 cable drums on site.

Another key solution was the laying box, specially designed for this project to install cables and sand automatically in the trench.

Solutions

This project led us to introduce a new range of cable installation solutions for wind farm projects. By increasing the safety using the laying box, we avoid having any employees working in the trench and the cable is automatically installed. Finally, our wrapping machine secures the position of the trefoil.