HARINGVLIET CROSSING

摘要

Drilled utility connections do not come much longer than a new 5km power cable link now being installed near to Rotterdam in the Netherlands. Admittedly the drilling is in two half sections, achieved with a bore from each end meeting in the middle and requiring the construction of an artificial island. But even so the half sections are 2.5km each and the longest single drilling is 1,400m. The pipeline is needed to cross the Haringvliet, a large freshwater river south of Rotterdam, formed post world war two when the original sea inlet was dammed with locks from the North Sea as protection against flooding, after the 1953 storm surges killed many. Famous for its fishing, it is surrounded by flat farmland once dotted with picturesque windmills. These have now gone but clusters of modern windmills stand here and there and it is for the connection of the people on the islands and these renewable energy generators that the new connection is needed. The cable will link the green power into the Dutch grid, primarily feeding the big industrial conurbation of Rotterdam. Two parallel circuits consisting of three 110,150kV power cables will be fitted into pipe ducts beneath the water, along with three smaller ducts to carry fibre optic cables. The cables and ducts will be held together wrapped around a special spacer. The similar, parallel line will run alongside with another bundle of three power cables and three more fibre optic ducts making six of each being installed in all.