Next Geosolutions, the international survey and offshore construction support service contractor, with the support of CoNISMa (National Inter-University Consortium for Marine Sciences) which will perform environmental survey tasks, has been awarded the survey works for the West Link of the Tyrrhenian Link project by Terna, the company that manages the Italian national transmission grid for high and extra-high voltage power.

The Tyrrhenian Link is a new electricity corridor at the centre of the Mediterranean Sea and will connect Sicily with Sardinia and the Italian peninsula via a double underwater cable system, divided in two sections: EAST LINK from Sicily to Campania and WEST LINK from Sicily to Sardinia. Altogether, the HVDC link will have a length of 950 kilometres and a capacity of 1000 MW, supported by a massive investment from Terna of approximately 3,7 billion Euro over the next few years.

The West Link, with its 471km length and 2120m depth below sea level, will be, once completed, the deepest submarine power cable in the world, breaking the current record of 1600m still held by Terna with the SAPEI Link between Sardinia and the Italian peninsula.

The final aim of the survey is the identification of the reference routes of the two pole cables and one electrode submarine cable at Sardinia side. To achieve that, NextGeo will execute reconnaissance multi-beam survey, detailed ROV-based geophysical survey, geotechnical survey and environmental investigations, both nearshore and offshore.