Red Eléctrica de España (REE), the operator of the Spanish power system and the owner of the power transmission grid, has awarded Nexans a turnkey contract worth more than 90 million euros to create a new 115-km (71-mile) high-voltage submarine power link between the islands of Mallorca and Ibiza.

This project forms part of the set of investments that REE is making to interconnect the Balearic Islands with the Iberian Peninsula to guarantee and improve the reliability of their electricity supply. This principal goal is to improve energy efficiency and reduce emissions.

Earlier in 2011, REE commissioned the ROMULO project, a 400-MW high-voltage direct-current link between Spain's 400-kV grid and Mallorca, for which Nexans manufactured, supplied and installed 240 km (149 miles) of DC submarine cables. In this new contract, Nexans will extend the connection to Ibiza by constructing a 132-kV AC submarine cable featuring state-of-the-art XLPE insulation. The 100-MW link will establish two world records for both the longest three-core high-voltage AC connection and the deepest, at an installation depth of 750 m (2,460 ft).

The submarine cable will be manufactured at the specialized Nexans facility in Halden, Norway, and will incorporate fiber-optic elements produced at the Rognan facility in Norway. The project will include 24 km (15 miles) of single-core high-voltage land cable from the Nexans factory in Charleroi, Belgium, together with accessories from Nexans Cossonay in Switzerland.

The submarine cable will be buried in the seabed, using the CapJet system and mechanical trenching. Installation and commissioning should take place between 2013 and 2014.

For more information, visit www.nexans.com.