Abstract
The demand for renewable energy has lead to a large scale deployment of offshore wind farms, particularly in Northern Europe. The extent of the electrical cabling in the marine environment is unprecedented, and this has lead to questions about whether there are any interactions between the electricity produced and the surrounding environment. A summary of the electric and magnetic fields generated by such cables is presented based on a research project using an analytical method to set up the problem which was then quantified numerically using the finite-element method. An industry standard 132 kV XLPE three-phase submarine cable buried at a depth of 1 m was modelled as an example. The results showed that a cable with perfect shielding does not generate an electric field (E field) outside the cable directly. However, a time-varying magnetic field (H field) is generated by the alternating current in the cable, which in turn generates an induced E field in the local environment. The results are considered in terms of environmental impact assessment relevant for the power delivery community.