Specific submarine cable system challenges for the development of a Mediterranean interconnection grid

Medgrid is a European industrial initiative to study the feasibility of a 1,000 MW HVDC transmission project connecting North Africa to Europe. Medgrid assigned to a Consortium led by CESI (together with Intertek and Parson Brinckerhoff) a feasibility study aimed at providing answers to technology and cable limits, laying methods, maintenance, costs and planning, for a generic deep water submarine cable system .
Due to the unusual depths which the cable route is expected to reach, special care has been paid to investigate the possible choices in terms of design concepts, technology availability, construction capability and laying methods. This is from the context of what is expected to be made available by the ‘market’ for the implementation of the required cable  functionalities in time for commissioning a new ‘product’ for two time scenarios: target years 2020 or 2030.
The results and conclusions presented by this paper relied on the interactive contribution across the Task Forces, the Stakeholders and the Respondents, also through questionnaires delivered to the major players of the Industry.
As a general conclusion, the study has shown that the installation of power cables in deep waters (2500 m water depth) is possible with some modification to current installation methods, and innovative application of vessels and equipment from both the power cable and oil & gas industries. ​