the blue growth farm platform

The Blue Growth Farm connection

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  • 01/08/2021
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On July 14th TECNALIA team realized a trip to Reggio Calabria (Italy) with the goal to perform some technical tasks related with the Ditrel’s connector named KONEKTA2 on the floating platform developed in the project The Blue Growth Farm and installed in front of the Natural Ocean Engineering Laboratory (NOEL) of the Mediterranea University of Reggio Calabria.

The following tasks were carried out:

1. Arrangement and laying of the dynamic cable on the seabed; the cable is already equipped with the connector.
2. Pull in and connection of the connector in the platform.
3. Continuity test of the dynamic cable.

Cable deployment of The blue growth farm
Cable deployment in Reggio Calabria

The tasks were realized by 3 different teams in synergy:

  • TECNALIA: connection and continuity test
  • DITREL: connection and continuity test
  • CDA:  cable deployment

All the tasks were realized with the support of NOEL team and the supervision of Bureau Veritas.
Only one day was necessary to perform successfully all the tasks, even if a duration of two days had been originally estimated.

Francesco Boscolo (TECNALIA) commented: “it was very interesting to work on a floating platform, especially participating in the deployment and installation operations of dynamic cable and Ditrel’s connector

 

Connector connection
Connection of the connector

 

The Blue Growth Farm is a H2020 funded EC project (GA n. 774426), which aims to develop and demonstrate an automated, modular and environmentally friendly multi functional platform for open sea farm installations of the Blue Growth Industry. The project consortium is made up of 13 partners from 5 EU countries: RINA Consulting S.p.A., University of Strathclyde, Fincosit s.r.l., Safier Ingenierie SaS, Natural Ocean Engineering Laboratory (NOEL), Sagro Aquaculture Ltd, Chlamys s.r.l., The Scottish Association for Marine Science lbg, Wavenergy.it s.r.l., Ecole Centrale de Nantes, Fundacion Tecnalia Research &
Innovation, Politecnico di Milano and Ditrel Industrial S.L.

The aim of the Blue Growth Farm project is to produce advanced industrial knowledge with a fully integrated and efficient offshore multipurpose floating platform, which provides a central protected pool to host an automated aquaculture system, capable of producing high quality fish, as well as a large storage and deck areas to host a commercial 10 MW wind turbine and a number of wave energy converters (WEC). The platform results from the suitable assembly of low-cost, corrosion-resistance, low-maintenance concrete caisson modules. TECNALIA collaborates in this project with the Basque SME Ditrel Insdustrial, with the objective to increase the KONEKTA2 TRL through the connection and disconnection of the outdoor prototype (~1:10) of the platform to tests on open sea environment in Reggio Calabria.

For more information about the Project you can visit the Project website (https://www.thebluegrowthfarm.eu/).