A NORTH-EAST cable maker has secured a contract to work on Belgium’s largest offshore wind farm.

JDR Cables, based in Hartlepool, supply subsea power cables and umbilicals to the offshore energy industry.

The firm will design, manufacture and deliver 78.1 kilometres of aluminium core inter-array cables and a range of cable accessories, including repair joints and connector, after signing a contract with DEME Offshore for the SeaMade offshore wind farm.

The SeaMade offshore wind farm is located up to 50 km off the coast from Ostend and will integrate two wind sites known as Mermaid and Seastar.

The project is the single largest windfarm being funded and built in Belgium. When fully operational, the windfarm will supply renewable energy to 485,000 houses in Belgium and offset 700,000t of carbon dioxide emissions a year.

The new wind farm is expected to be operational by 2020.

Robert Weeks, sales manager at JDR, said: “We are extremely proud to have won this competitive tender through our track-record of delivering market-leading cable technology to the offshore wind industry.

"To date we have supplied over 1,500 km of cables globally which is a fantastic achievement that is down to the quality of our products and the expertise of our people.

"And we are thrilled to say we are playing a part in Belgium’s largest offshore wind farm. As an organisation we are really looking forward to collaborating with DEME Offshore on this impressive project, which will provide power from renewable energy to a substantial amount of homes in Belgium.”

Last year, the firm secured inter-array cables and termination work for Orsted’s record-breaking offshore wind farm, Hornsea Project Two, located in the North Sea.

When operational in 2022, the wind farm will supply clean electricity to over 1.3 million homes, and surpass its sister project Hornsea One, as the world’s largest offshore wind farm.

The contract includes 100km, around the same distance as Hartlepool to Leeds, of inter-array cables, all to be assembled in JDR’s Hartlepool factory.

Inter-array cables link turbines together, and carry the clean electricity generated by the turbines to an offshore substation, which converts it to a higher voltage for transmission to shore.

JDR first opened its Hartlepool factory about a decade ago and has won a string of high-profile orders in that time.

In 2018, the firm agreed a major deal to supply 50km of power cables to Taiwan’s first offshore wind farm, known as Formosa 1.

Work is expected to start at the end of the year.