RTE (Réseau de Transport d’Electricité) is looking to carry out nearshore geophysical, UXO and geotechnical campaign at the French landfall of the Celtic Interconnector marine cable.
The €1 billion Celtic Interconnector will connect Ireland’s electricity network to France via an underwater connection.
Once built, its 700 megawatts capacity will power 450,000 households, and help Ireland to switch to 70% renewable energy as set out in the Government’s Climate Action Plan.
The geophysical investigation will include both surface and subsurface survey.
The purposes of the UXO survey is to ensure an as low as reasonably practicable (ALARP) UXO risk is at geotechnical location to be investigated during the subsequent geotechnical survey.
Deep geotechnical ground truthing will be performed nearshore to characterise the materials which would be drilled during cable installation works by the means of horizontal directional drilling (or equivalent trenchless technique trenchless technique).
Both surface drilling from a DP vessel, jack-up or heave suitable wave — compensated rig and remotely operated drilling can be considered.
It includes the collections of quality samples of soil and rock from nearshore locations, to be tested for the determination of physical and mechanical properties and to support the interpretation of the geophysical data. One to two 30-metre depth drillings are expected.
Deadline for receipt of tenders or requests to participate has been set for April 24, 2020.