Triton Knoll agrees major construction contract with Murphy

Triton Knoll has signed its first major construction contract, with the award of a circa £100 million contract to Murphy. 

The contract comes as the circa 860MW innogy project begins its initial works onshore, in preparation for the main construction of the substation and cable route later this summer. 

We have already been working on the design and are now preparing to install the project’s onshore cable circuits, part of the Triton Knoll Electrical System (TKES), which stretches from the point of landfall near Anderby Creek, to a new Triton Knoll Substation at Bicker Fen. 

The TKES installation will present one of the biggest engineering challenges of its kind, with almost 60kms of onshore underground cable to install, and over 300 obstacles to be crossed by individual horizontal direction drills – three times more than what’s believed to be the previous UK record for an infrastructure project. 

Murphy CEO John Murphy said: “This is one of the biggest power projects that Murphy will have worked on and it’s a real marker of the upward direction in which our business is going, as we continue to develop and grow. To have been chosen for such a large and prestigious project shows that we are trusted by innovative companies like innogy to deliver world-class infrastructure projects that will improve people’s lives. It’s an incredibly exciting and complex project, and we’re looking forward to working closely with innogy to provide first-rate results.” 

Initial works to prepare for the onshore main construction gets underway during June 2018 at various locations along the TKES onshore cable route and will include the following activity: 

  • Installation of temporary office accommodation 
  • Construction of several temporary construction compounds 
  • Preparation of various access roads along the route 
  • Establishment of speed restrictions several major roads 
  • Topsoil stripping along parts of the onshore cable route 

Triton Knoll Project Director Julian Garnsey said: “We are delighted to award this contract to our supply chain partners Murphy. This contract secures significant investment into the UK supply chain, which will open up additional opportunities for more local firms to support innogy’s flagship offshore wind farm, Triton Knoll. 

“Murphy has already engaged local firms during preliminary works for Triton Knoll, and has demonstrated their willingness to continue working with us to ensure we can maximize opportunities from our investments for local and UK businesses, throughout the project lifecycle. 

“We’re very excited that Murphy is now on board as we prepare to start onshore construction in the coming weeks and months.” 

We will shortly begin setting up new project offices on the cable route where it intersects the A16, which affords good transport links to the rest of the county. This will eventually house over 100 UK staff. In addition, the civil engineering, specialist excavation teams and horizontal directional drilling (HDD) works required to deliver these major works will attract a large UK-based workforce for the duration of the installation, and Murphy has already begun to bring on board local companies following a recent successful Triton Knoll supplier event earlier this year. 

Murphy is a well-established construction and engineering company with more than 60 years’ experience in delivering large infrastructure projects, with expertise in onshore and near shore cable laying, horizontal directional drilling, tunnelling, cable systems design and civils route engineering. 

For more information about the project, please visit: www.tritonknoll.co.uk