deugro has started the first cable drum deliveries for SuedOstLink, on behalf of Prysmian.
SuedOstLink is operated by the transmission system operator TenneT is considered a central component of the energy transition. It will bring electricity generated by renewable power sources from northern and eastern Germany to Bavaria in the south of the country, and from Bavaria to the north.
Over the next 3.5 years, deugro will deliver more than 800, 10 m-long cable drums weighing up to 86 tonnes, from two storage yards in Kelheim and Regensburg (operated by deugro and its partners) to 120 different jobsites across Bavaria.
“Due to the involvement of many different parties already in the planning and preparation phases, it was essential to coordinate and understand the other stakeholders’ needs. A lot of the stakeholders have naturally never been involved in special transports before, which required a lot of awareness training in numerous personal workshops and regular online meetings in changing groups,” said Simon Junker, head of cable projects – renewable energy at deugro Germany.
deugro said the biggest challenges are the cylindrical shape and the weight of the cable drums, as well as Bavaria’s hilly landscape, varying topography and infrastructure. Therefore, to ensure the safe transportation of the cable drums, a customised solution enabling the safe load securing and efficient unspooling operations simultaneously after arrival was developed.
A unique part of this project is that the cable drum will not be discharged but stay on the transport configuration during the unspooling operation.
“Each cable drum is positioned on four rollers on which it can rotate evenly during unspooling. This purpose-built unspooling device is flexible and can be used for different transport configurations for his project. Because the steel of the cable drums is directly loaded onto the steel of the unspooling device, less friction can be considered for the calculation of the required load securing. This big challenge has been solved by developing an appropriate load securing consisting of chains and a tailor-made, adjustable form fit designed in collaboration with our partners,” Junker explained.
Another feature of the project is that the drums need to be transloaded on their way to the jobsites. A girder bridge combination, which is long and low, is suitable for transit on motorways and for clearing overpasses. However, their roughly 40 m length makes it impossible to pass through the narrow streets of small Bavarian villages. At these point, the drums are loaded onto self-propelled PSTs or lowbed trailers, which are shorter but have a transport height of approximately 5.4 m
“The sheer size of the project with the utilisation of so much special equipment in parallel makes SuedOstLink unique for deugro and a real challenge for the hundreds of experts involved,” Junker added.
This project has been years in the making. Since November 2021, Schmidbauer has been handling cable drums at bayernhafen Regensburg on behalf of deugro.
