Director comments on massive UK energy project

A Cambridgeshire company has been tasked with laying the undersea supply cables for a major new offshore power plant, it has been reported.

A Cambridgeshire company has been tasked with laying the undersea supply cables for a major new offshore power plant, it has been reported.

JDR Cable Systems has been contracted by Fluor to ensure the power generated by the Greater Gabbard offshore windfarm, 14 miles off the Suffolk coast, will be transported to the mainland.

Greater Gabbard windfarm is the largest offshore windfarm in the world, and is being developed by Airtricity, the firm trying to implement a Europe-wide renewable energy grid.

JDR managing director Patrick Phelan said: "This deal underpins the recruitment of 80 new jobs for our new quayside manufacturing facility in Hartlepool for the next two years and increases staff from 170 to around 200 in Littleport."

Commenting on further developments by the company, Mr Phelan added: "We are also bidding for other wind farm contracts in the UK and are looking at the Centrica Lincs offshore wind farm and the Sheringham Shoal offshore wind farm."

The creation of such jobs highlights the wide-ranging potential to boost recruitment numbers in the vicinity of green power plants, both in the energy industry itself and engineering industries connected to it.