Case study: Hywind Scotland
Aneesh Chandran | 3 minute read | 2 April 2026
Inter-array and export cable condition monitoring for Hywind Scotland
Synaptec’s strategic partner Proserv delivered their ECG™ system, incorporating Synaptec’s DES technology to Hywind Scotland, providing condition monitoring of its inter-array and export cables on the world’s first commercial floating offshore wind farm.
Complete visibility of cable health
Using DES, DTS and DAS to automate inspections
Continuous real time monitoring
Enabling warnings of abnormal behaviour
Lower operating
costs
Minimal operational expenses and maximum availability of network
Hywind Scotland is the world’s first commercial floating offshore wind farm, owned by operator Equinor and its partner Masdar. This 30 MW windfarm that hosts five wind turbine generators, is located 30 km off the coast of Aberdeen in Scotland. The project generates clean energy for around 36,000 UK homes, and has successfully demonstrated the commercial feasibility of floating offshore windfarms.
Equinor is a global energy company, supplying customers across Europe in the oil and gas, renewables, and low-carbon solutions sectors. The company is committed to leading the way in the energy transition, with a key focus on reach a net-zero status by 2025.
Synaptec’s strategic partner Proserv supplied their ECG™ solution which integrates Synaptec’s DES technology, to provide the customer with real-time condition monitoring of the floating wind farm’s inter-array and export cables.
The challenge
Inter-array cables used in floating wind farms operate in extremely challenging environments, where they must withstand constant platform motion, harsh wave and current conditions. It is also subject to saltwater corrosion, seabed interaction, and long-term fatigue from dynamic bending. The North Sea causes constant seabed movement, placing stress on the cable body, joint and termination, making them prone to degradation and potential failure, if not monitored and maintained. Continuous stress on the cables can lead to an increase in contact resistance at those locations, which can cause overheating, bottlenecks in power transmission, and operational failure.
Equinor wanted a means of monitoring those cables in real-time to give them early warning of multiple failure modes, to enable them to schedule targeted maintenance, avoid all preventable failures, and reduce the environmental and safety impact of sending personnel offshore to perform unnecessary inspections.
Our solution
This project was delivered using Proserv’s ECG™ solution, which integrates Synaptec’s Distributed Electrical Sensing (DES) technology.
Synaptec supplied their unique interrogators alongside passive sensors, which monitor the voltage, phase and sheath currents in the inter-array cables, as well as the temperature of the cable terminations.
Passive sensors were installed on joints and terminations, which collected measurements that were sent back to the interrogators located within the offshore substation.
The data gathered is centralised and processed using Synaptec’s Synthesis® server, which was delivered to the ECG™ visualisation dashboard.
The ECG™ solution gives a comprehensive picture of the overall condition and health of the cables, terminations, joints, and other associated accessories, delivering actionable insights on the cable system’s overall health, including overheating and early warning signs of potential failures. The solution enables planned, lower-cost maintenance interventions, helping operators minimise OPEX and vessel usage by scheduling work around weather conditions and resource availability, while giving operators confidence in the ongoing condition of their assets and reducing the carbon footprint and HSE risk of performing the cable system O&M.
DES Interrogator (top), a DMS Interrogator (middle) and a Synthesis® server (bottom) in substation rack.
PSC-1s with connected CTs.
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