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Kōrero: Engineering on the sea floor

Upgrading cables

Video file

In 1991, three new power cables and two new fibre-optic cables were laid along the Cook Strait sea floor. The new power cables are 126 millimetres in diameter, very heavy (1 metre weighs 52 kilograms), and can carry 350 kV 1,430 amps of high-voltage direct current. Watch footage of the Skagerrak laying them.

Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi

Transpower New Zealand

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Me pēnei te tohu i te whārang

Keith Lewis, Engineering on the sea floor – Submarine cables, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/mi/video/6635/upgrading-cables (accessed 4 June 2026).

He kōrero nā Keith Lewis, i tāngia i te 2 March 2009.