Balfour Beatty wins £52m London cabling contract

Balfour Beatty previously did the cabling works for phase one of the project, north of the river Thames between 2013 and 2017; now it has the second phase of the scheme to ‘rewire London’. 

Works on this phase include installing 200km of 400kV cables within a 32.5km tunnel network, deep underground between Wimbledon and Crayford.

Cable installation will begin in January 2023 with the full package of works expected to be completed in 2026.

Balfour Beatty will use the second generation of its Automated Cable Installation Equipment (ACIE) machine. Developed in-house and used on the first phase, the second-generation machine has laser sensors and cameras to improve the speed and quality of the works. Automating the process in this way has also revolutionised the safety of tunnel cable installation works by reducing the number of people required within the underground tunnels manually installing the cables, Balfour Beatty said.

Ian Currie, managing director of Balfour Beatty’s power transmission and distribution business, said: “Our world leading expertise and innovation in tunnel cable installation, combined with our deep sector knowledge, makes us ideally positioned to successfully deliver this critical piece of national infrastructure.”

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