Case study: Dogger Bank
Aneesh Chandran | 3 minute read | 2 April 2026
Holistic cable monitoring with Proserv’s ECG™
Synaptec’s partner Proserv was awarded a contract to provide an Inter-Array Cables (IAC) monitoring system for Dogger Bank A and B, set to be the largest offshore wind farm in the world. Synaptec’s core technology is at the heart of the ECG™ solution, which will provide the operator with synchronous, real-time monitoring, to improve visibility of asset integrity, optimise performance, and reduce failures.
Overheating alarms
To prevent costly outages before they occur
Reduce failures
Intelligent monitoring detects developing faults
Cable health insights
Built over time, and compared to other locations
Dogger Bank is a joint venture between SSE, Equinor, and Vårgrønn, and is set to be the largest offshore wind farm in the world. The project is being developed in three phases; A, B, and C, within an offshore zone located 125 km off the east coast of the UK. Covering an area of approximately 8,660 km², the site features water depths ranging from 18 m to 63 m.
Each phase will deliver 1.2 GW of capacity, giving a combined total of 3.6 GW, which is enough to power up to 6 million UK homes annually. Phases A and B are located 131 km from shore and connect to the existing Creyke Beck substation. Their subsea export cables make landfall north of Ulrome, with 30 km of underground cables transporting electricity to two converter stations near Cottingham, before feeding into the National Grid’s power network.
Synaptec’s strategic partner Proserv secured the cable monitoring contact from DEME Offshore, who is responsible for the IAC for Dogger Bank A and B (and later C), to deploy Electro Cable Guard (ECG™), which utilises Synaptec’s Distributed Mechanical Sensing (DMS) technology.
The challenge
For offshore wind farms such as Dogger Bank, cable reliability is critical, as IACs are both costly to repair and is a leading cause of financial losses. Although cables represent only about 9–11% of a wind farm’s capital cost, they account for an estimated 80% of insurance claims in the London market.
Statistics over the past 20 years show that interfaces and junctions are the weakest points in cable systems, with 69% of failures occurring at joints and terminations. Yet, monitoring these remote and harsh subsea locations is often expensive, labour-intensive, and technically infeasible due to long distances, environmental challenges, and limited space or power availability.
To reduce this risk, Dogger Bank’s IAC supplier DEME Offshore was seeking a cable monitoring system that would support them in optimising their assets, by monitoring these critical locations to provide warning before failures occur. Conventional technologies were not cost-effective, or only intervene once failure and damage has occurred.
Our solution
As part of Proserv’s ECG™ solution, Synaptec’s Distributed Mechanical Sensing (DMS) technology was utilised to provide point temperature measurements from each of the 96 termination locations across the Dogger Bank offshore wind farm.
Using existing optical fibre within the cable network, the temperature measurements are sent to the DMS Interrogator in the P&C rack, processed by Synaptec’s Synthesis® software, and delivered to the ECG™ visualisation dashboard.
The collected data provides the customer with actionable information on overheating, additional thermal headroom, and leading indicators of potential failures caused by moisture ingress or gradual insulation breakdown. By consistently collecting and monitoring this data, predictive and actionable insights into the health of the cables can be generated, enabling timely interventions and improved reliability.
Synaptec’s technology is a cost-effective solution for customers, as installation and integration is simple. The sensors are passive, meaning they require no control power, data networks or ongoing maintenance. By using the existing optical fibre, no complex infrastructure is required, and data is only generated within the safety of the substation.
This proactive approach to cable maintenance meant that Proserv were able to provide DEME Offshore with early warning of vulnerable locations, before critical failures occur. Proserv and Synaptec then went on to secure a further contract with DEME Offshore, on the final phase of the project, Dogger Bank C.
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