extending the life of submarine cable networksproudsponsorofptc’15...

Proud Sponsor of PTC’15

Emerging SubSea Networks-‐ the world’s expanding treasure Elaine Stafford,

The David Ross Group

Extending the Life Of Submarine Cable Networks

Elaine Stafford, David Ross Group

CHAIR

Raynald LeConte Orange

MARINE (“Laid it”)

John Hibbard, Hibbard Consul6ng

WHY?

Keith Schofield Pioneer

SubOpIc Working Group

Steve Dawe,

Vodafone, In absen6a

HOW?

(“Done it & Using it”)

Bernard Logan

Mertech

SALVAGE

Larry Moskowitz,

AT&T,

HOW? (“Done it & Using it”)

Stuart Barnes Xtera

HOW? (“Supplied

It”)

Seymour Shapiro,

Ex-‐SubCom.

RELIABILITY

Introductions




Recycling Pre-Owned Cable Networks: Perspective on Recent Success Stories

2004-‐ Recycling Pre-‐Owned Systems & Shore Ends Proposed at SubOp@c: as a poten@al win-‐win means to: •  Connect remote regions where new cables were unaffordable, and •  Keep supplier marine assets in service during market down-‐turn

Since 2006: •  Seven recycled networks have been installed and commissioned in the Pacific,

Caribbean and Atlan@c •  Several of these extend between 1000-‐2000 km in length •  All are reliably providing service today for various global operators •  None have experienced any internal wet-‐system failure •  All were recycled, with teams of experts, using cables installed in the mid-‐90’s

•  All used recycled repeaters, except the one network which was repeaterless •  Most used simply lightweight cable, but some also recycled shore ends and

armored cable •  Some used new SLTEs and PFEs, while others recycled this equipment

Today: a proven, affordable alterna@ve for some low-‐capacity regional routes. The cost/benefit is very solu@on-‐specific.


Emerging SubSea Networks-‐ the world’s expanding treasure John Hibbard,

Hibbard Consulting

Affordable Alterna@ve: Remote, low-‐popula@on island-‐na@ons remain dependent solely on satellite and would benefit from fiber-‐ if it was affordable

Essen@al Op@on: Recycling can significantly reduce ini@al capital cost, making fiber an affordable and essen@al op@on for some regions

Ample Capacity: Even with reduced capacity, s@ll can be abundant for skinny routes Reliable Performance: Life@me forecast for recycled cable networks can be many years, if terminal gear (and poten@ally also repeaters) are replaced, and warranted comparably to new networks

Timely Availability: Project implementa@on @me similar to new systems

Green Solu@on: cleans seabed; classic recycling; reduced CO2 emission -‐-‐ environmental bonanza, for as long as there remains suitable cable to recover

Market & Finance Percep@on Problems: gradually being overcome and accepted by banks and boards (“Pre-‐Owned” vs. “Second-‐Hand”, and novel need not mean risky)

The Recycling “Imperative”


Emerging SubSea Networks-‐ the world’s expanding treasure

Economics and Expertise   The economics of recycling project are extremely sensi@ve to:

•  scope of recovery, •  vessel rate and endurance, and •  asset transfer fees. Any of these factors (or a combina@on thereof) can render recycling unviable. Other project variables make li`le difference vis-‐à-‐vis the economics of new vs. recycled.

  Key to recycling success is: •  close teamwork within and among the contrac@ng partners, •  coopera@ve route and marine engineering defining a low risk technical solu@on

matching asset availability with route requirements, •  an experienced project engineering and management team, •  an appropriate risk and reward structure-‐ par@cularly between system integrator,

marine contractor and system engineer func@ons.

Steve Dawe, Vodafone



Technical and Commercial Issues

  Success of a recycled system depends on good line design. This requires experienced vendors with deep knowledge of system impairments

  Availability of cable and repeater data of recycled system important to providing a good line design

  Working with experienced marine operator who has either done significant repairs or recovered systems in the past and knows the area where recovery will occur

  Cost benefit of recovery of cable and repeaters vs. new produc@on needs to be weighed. •  May not be able to recover armored cable as it is buried and may be

underneath other cables so cheaper to produce new cable

•  Use of exis@ng shore sec@ons to avoid permidng and addi@onal costs   Local laws and fishermen rights to be respected if recycled system to be recovered in territorial and economic zones

Larry Moskowitz, AT&T



Cable System Reliability

Seymour Shapiro, past TE-SubCom CTO

  Fiber Reliability: >> 25 years •  Hydrogen ageing and fiber breaks observed early in system life – residual life >> 25 years

  Repeater Reliability/Life@me: > 25 years •  Housing (>> 25 years) and electro-‐op@cs > 25 years •  Repeater replacement may introduce incremental reliability risk due to shipboard join@ng (moulding)

  Cable Mechanical/Insula@on Integrity: Poten@ally >> 25 years •  Armored cable more robust than armorless, but more difficult to recover •  Repeatered cable be`er protected (thicker insula@on) than repeaterless •  Careful inspec@on during recovery to find & repair damage is cri@cally important; risk of latent damage must be managed

•  Matching recovered cable/fiber type and segment-‐lengths with new-‐network required SLD requires expert engineering and management

  Terminal Life@me: wear out managed by repair



System Design Perspective: Repeaters are the key

  Network transmission capability and network reliability are both largely determined by the repeaters. Replacing repeaters can improve both, but is not always warranted.

  Addi@onally, the network cost savings afforded thru recycling can be swayed by the decision of new vs. recycled repeaters, but is largely driven by recycled-‐cable purchase price and marine recovery expense

Stuart Barnes, Xtera

$-‐

$10.0

$20.0

$30.0

$40.0

New Recyle w/Repeaters Recyle (NewRepeaters)

Illustrative Comparative Costs

Dry Plant Recovered Wet Plant New Cable New RepeatersMarine-‐ Recovery Marine-‐Install Other

  Marine costs can be measurably greater with recycling

  Cable costs are likely meaningfully less with recycling

  Repeater cost savings can vary considerably, depending on whether they are replaced (or not), perhaps to achieve greater network capacity

  Dry Plant Costs – small part of the equa@on and can be recycled (or not) with wet plant



Illustrative payback model -Assumptions Small PopulaKon & Capacity Demand 1000 km from hub

-‐40

-‐20

0

20

40

60

80

100

YEAR

0

YEAR

1

YEAR

2

YEAR

3

YEAR

4

YEAR

5

YEAR

6

YEAR

7

YEAR

8

YEAR

9

YEAR

10

YEAR

11

YEAR

12

YEAR

13

YEAR

14

YEAR

15

YEAR

16

YEAR

17

YEAR

18

YEAR

19

YEAR

20

YEAR

21

YEAR

22

YEAR

23

YEAR

24

YEAR

25

ANNUAL PRO

FITA

BILITY (U

S$M)

Recycled system Recycled & New Repeater New System

  The Fat Controller is happy with the return, but even happier with the iniKal savings!

  The pressured CEO and Gov’t are de-‐stressed because a handful of 100Gs can last a lifeKme!



Repeater Reliability An Illustrative Example

  The least reliable element in a repeater is the pump laser

  The wear-‐out mechanism for lasers follows a lognormal distribu@on, which exhibits an increasing failure rate with @me.

  For a somewhat typical laser with failure rate 85 FITs over 25 years, it is reasonable extrapolate that for 37 years (50% longer) to: •  128 FITs per pump; •  5.3 FITS per redundant pump pair (vs. 1.6 FITS); •  27.4 FITS per 2-‐pr repeater (vs. 20 FITS);

  For a 3000-‐km, 30-‐repeater system, this results in: •  30 X 27.4 = 822 FITs. •  0.27 ship repairs over 37 years.


Repeater reliability for a recycled regional network, recycled aUer 10-‐15 years of operaIon, is well within acceptable system-‐design requirements.



Recycled System Power Budgets:   Are technically the same as for a new build, but:

•  Margin mainly for repairs, as ageing should be small •  Wet-‐plant performance should be well-‐known, and require less for “unknowns”

  Oten start with extra/excess opera@ng margin •  Older systems had very conserva@ve design and implementa@on, resul@ng in more margin than

specified in the original requirements •  Target system may be shorter / capacity modest

  Typically are based on wet-‐plant performance measurements •  Needed if data is not available – some@mes for “Legal” reasons •  Typically on one pair only – are the others the same? •  Takes @me, par@cularly for several poten@al suppliers to test •  There are alterna@ves

  May demonstrate value of poten@ally replacing old repeaters with new •  More bandwidth, less noise ⇨ more capacity, longer poten@al life. A`ainable capacity is likely:

greatest with a new system, least without replacing repeaters, and in-‐between if repeaters are replaced

•  Adds a li`le cost and @me, but needs to be examined in the cost/benefit balance •  Depends on several factors, not all technical, and needs to be assessed case-‐by-‐case


System Power Budgets: Recycling with Ample Transmission Margin



Proven Marine Experience FT-‐Marine Experience : two large projects for which the customer owned the system to be recovered and decided to redeploy the cable and repeaters. This was solving the ownership transfer of assets. Marine Scope: Op@mizing the cost of marine ops. •  The projects were made on board CS René Descartes with her three tanks. •  The cable and the repeaters were tested during the recovery phase. •  The new system was constructed on board while recovering.

Raynald LeConte, Orange (FT-Marine)

Recovered Cable Quality: Minimal cable damage occurred during recovery which required repair before relaying. No faults were experienced during or ater lay. Excess Recovered Repeaters: The number of repeaters recovered enabled some to be allocated to the maintenance reserve Splicing in New Repeaters On Board?: enabled by UJ Cable/Route Engineering: The issue of the availability and engineering of the armored cable into the new route is cri@cal Other Advantages: in one of our project, the reuse of the landing sta@ons, that of course simplified dras@cally the permits issue



When Recycling Uneconomical, SALVAGE

Bernard Logan, Mertech Marine

Benefits of Recovery: •  Removes Con@nuous Third Party risks and Permidng Payments

•  Frees up sea floor route for new cables

•  Recycling of Cable Materials: poly, steel, copper, Environmental Saving

•  Recovery of Repeaters: Hazardous Material Handling and recycling metals

Challenges in Recovery: •  Cable Crossing Data •  Keeping Costs Down •  Seeking Original Owners Agreement



Recycling 8000 km cable saves up to 286,000 tons of CO2 emissions

Note: 1) Values are rounded. Values differ between sources due to different methods of produc@on and different means of energy genera@on 2) A factor of 1.08 kg CO2 per kWh has been used based on energy produc@on in South Africa as per Smart Living Handbook 3) 15% has been subtracted from the values given in the sources in order to compare like with like, since the values in the sources are for new final products, whereas

the values calculated for recycled material are for pellets, chips and cable (i.e. one stage before final product) Sources: Smart Living Handbook (City of Cape Town, South Africa, 2007, www.capetown.gov.za), www.ecofx.org, www.wikipedia.com

New products

Recycled products

Virgin input

material

•  Plastic pellets

•  Copper chips

•  Steel cable

Undersea cable

•  Plastic pellets

•  Copper chips

•  Steel cable

Recovery at sea

Transport

Dismantling

PelleKsing

TOTAL

4,377 tons CO2

116 tons CO2

148 tons CO2

2,860 tons CO2

Transport to client 766 tons CO2

8,267 tons CO2

166,000-‐286,000 tons CO2 net saving

Bernard Logan, Mertech Marine

HDPE Plastic 1765 tons 68-136 GJ/ ton 20-42 tons CO2/ ton

LDPE Plastic 3531 tons 68-136 GJ/ ton 20-42 tons CO2 /ton

Copper 2528 tons 44-83 GJ / ton 14-26 tons CO2 / ton

Steel 2336 tons 30-39 GJ /ton 9-12 tons CO2 /ton

TOTAL 10,160 tons 580K- 960K GJ 175,000 – 295,000 tons CO2



SubOptic Working Group Extending Working Life of Submarine Systems

  A ‘Good News’ story for the industry   Voluntary Cross-‐industry Collabora@on, 12+ involved

already – you can help define the issues to resolve   Workstreams on Technical, Opera@onal, Commercial,

Financial, Legal & Regulatory   Covers extending system life and recovery/re-‐lay   SubOp@c 2016 Workshop to present the findings   Much work to do – volunteer where you can help

(see Keith Schofield ater this)

Keith Schoefield, Pioneer




Extending the Life Of Submarine Cable Networks

Elaine Stafford, David Ross Group

Raynald LeConte Orange

John Hibbard, Hibbard Consul6ng

Keith Schofield Pioneer

Steve Dawe,

Vodafone, In absen6a

Bernard Logan

Mertech

Larry Moskowitz,

AT&T,

Stuart Barnes Xtera

Seymour Shapiro,

Ex-‐SubCom.

Questions ?

Thank You!



BACKUP



A worked example or two….

  Proof tes@ng: •  100kV for 9 days (equivalent to 10kV constant voltage for 25 years)

•  Cable life@me 𝑡∝𝑉↑−𝑛  •  Assume ultra-‐conserva@ve power law exponent n = 3

  Original system parameters: •  System length 3500km •  System voltage 7kV •  Opera@onal life to date 10 years

  Re-‐laid system parameters: •  System length 1500km •  System Voltage 3kV •  Es@mated remaining life@me 800 years




System Power Budgets: Recycling with Ample Transmission Margin

  Op@cal power budgets for both new & recycled systems must be engineered with margin to allow for con@nued aging, repairs and transmission impairments

  Most recycled systems do not change the original network repeater spacing

  Most recycled systems are oten shorter than and require less capacity than their original network. Thus, original repeater spacing and power levels are inherently conserva@ve rela@ve to requirements for their new home and offer ample margin

  Nonetheless, original network performance data is important to collect, analyse, understand, and model in a new network power budget for the recycled network.

  Recycled networks’ power budgets may not be “op@mized” in the same way a new system would be, to reduce repeater count, but they will be engineered with more than ample margin for the recycled network’s new life@me


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