Can you tell me about Indeximate and what it does
Indeximate is a climate technology company focused on improving the efficiency and reliability of electricity transmission by predicting and preventing subsea power cable failures. We use Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) combined with our proprietary Scattersphere® analytics platform to turn existing optical fibres within subsea power cables into continuous sensors for health and condition.
By compressing and analysing vast streams of DAS data in the cloud, we generate long-term risk profiles that reveal the integrity of cables, how they are behaving, where and when flaws may emerge, and how operators can take preventative action. The result is fewer failures, reduced downtime, cost savings, and more reliable renewable energy delivery.
What’s the purpose of data monitoring for subsea power cables? Is this just with regard to preventing cable failures or are there other reasons?
Cable failure prevention is the primary driver, but the benefits of monitoring extend far wider. Our technology provides continuous insight into how cables interact with their environment. This includes detecting vessel activity near cables, tracking seabed mobility, structural health of connected assets, understanding wave height and weather impacts, and even monitoring marine mammal activity.
We’re working with academic partners to explore these multiple-use aspects. The same fibre that helps prevent cable failure can also deliver valuable knowledge about the ocean environment and marine activity – creating a broader benefit for operators, regulators, and researchers, as well as national security operations.
How many cables subsea cables fail around the UK, and what are the main reasons?
It’s difficult to give an exact number, but industry data shows that premature cable failure is a persistent and costly issue. Typically the insurance industry accepts a figures of once per 400km per year. Which means that cables have a 95% probability of failure in 11 years which is less than half of the design life. Over the past 15 years, unnecessary cable failures have cost the UK offshore wind market around £3.5bn in lost earnings.
There’s a misconception that most failures are caused by anchors or fishing gear. In reality, many failures occur at critical points such as the cable protection system (CPS) or where cables pass into monopiles, areas that are difficult to inspect with traditional methods. Fatigue, abrasion, and subtle mechanical stresses often build up over time, eventually leading to faults and failures that could have been avoided with continuous monitoring.
What are the costs involved when cables fail and also with regard to repair?
The costs are significant. Most export cables are one of two, so when one goes down, export capacity drops by about a third. Revenue lost while an export cable is down can reach £50 million. On average, repairing a single export cable costs around £6 million. For array cables, repairs typically cost around £3 million, while lost revenue is lower, typically about £5 million.
Repair timelines can stretch over six months, during which time lost generation might be replaced with fossil fuels, adding to the financial and climate costs for all of us.
What kind of savings can be achieved by predictive maintenance?
By identifying and addressing flaws early, predictive maintenance can reduce failures by up to 75 percent. On a 1GW offshore wind farm, this translates into avoided costs of around £20 million per year, based on an optimistic figure of 600km failure rates, a total subsea length of 200km of export cable and 240km of array cable, a 55 percent capacity factor and typical industry figures for repair times, costs and strike prices. The figure is a total industry loss – split between operator, OFTO, insurer and regulator.
The return on investment is compelling, in this case a total ROI of 21:1, split between 40:1 for export cables and 6:1 for array cables. Beyond the financial benefits, predictive monitoring also allows operators to plan ahead for maintenance activity, which reduces the cost of equipment and operations. Being able to accurately predict failure also improves energy security and lowers the carbon footprint of offshore wind operations.
Who do you collaborate with and why?
We collaborate with integrators who bring together multiple monitoring approaches. Fibre sensing is powerful and can be augmented by other techniques such as electrical monitoring, point sensors, and traditional inspections. By combining different data sources, operators can build a truly holistic view of cable health.
We also work closely with insurers and industry and standards bodies such as DNV to develop monitoring and technology guidelines and standards. Collaboration is essential to create industry-wide acceptance of monitoring as a standard, and to ensure insurers and regulators can have confidence in the insights it provides.
What would you like to see happen with regard to cable maintenance going forward?
We’d like to see cable health monitoring become standard practice across the industry. Preventative, proactive approaches should replace the reactive repair model that has dominated until now.
For this to happen, we need alignment across stakeholders: insurers supporting and incentivising monitoring, regulators, Ofgem, encouraging adoption of new technologies, and industry programmes like OWGP backing innovative approaches. Initiatives like the Global Underwater Hub (GUH) monitoring guidelines are already helping to set the direction, and we believe wider adoption is essential to future reliability.
Anything else you would like to mention?
It’s worth noting that the earliest offshore wind farms built in the UK are now approaching the end of their generation licences. As operators start to assess life extension options and explore the viability, cable health checks will be added to overall activity assessing wind farm health. Indeximate technology enables the health checks needed to quantify whether extending the life of subsea cables is viable.
Life extension of offshore wind farms is important for ensuring the UK continues to meet its decarbonisation obligations. Idenitfying and understanding extension options early will ensure offshore wind can continue to deliver reliable, low-cost renewable energy to the market.
