In remote hills, snowy plateaus and farmland across Australia and New Zealand, energy developers are facing the same challenge: how to get cables in the ground faster, safer, and with less impact.
For a growing number of them, the answer is Tesmec.
With its refined mechanical laying process (MLP), the company is offering more than just machinery – it’s delivering a competitive edge in the race to renewables.
Invented by Jacques Marais in France in the 1970s and refined over decades by the Marais Group, a Tesmec subsidiary, the MLP reimagines cable installation as a single streamlined operation.
A trencher cuts a narrow trench, a laying box guides cables into place at pre-set depths, and a backfilling system completes the job – all in one continuous motion. Gone are the days of multiple excavators, manual labourers in trenches, and the logistical ballet of truck movements. In their place is a GPS-guided precision, less risk to workers, and leaner teams completing jobs at pace.
Tesmec Australia General Manager, Adrien Merceron, summed it up succinctly.
“The mechanical laying process really is revolutionising the industry,” he said.
“There’s massive scope for it to become the go-to process for a large number of infrastructure projects in Australia and New Zealand.”
The process might sound simple in theory, but in practice, its advantages become especially clear on complex sites.
At Charlotte Pass in New South Wales’ Snowy Mountains, Australia’s highest alpine village, Essential Energy turned to Tesmec to replace a damaged power cable.
Faced with strict environmental restrictions and a tight weather window, Tesmec’s team redesigned the trench layout and used a rocksaw trencher with an integrated laying box to complete the job without the need for workers in the trench.
The result is beyond satisfaction; faster delivery, reduced material usage, and minimal environmental disturbance.
“The Kosciuszko National Park team was extremely happy with the outcome and commented on Tesmec’s seamless delivery,” Essential Energy Program Manager, Jed Cutter, said. “It definitely sped things up, because we weren’t waiting on trucks to come backwards and forwards.”
Tesmec brought similar innovation to Meridian Energy’s Harapaki Wind Farm in New Zealand. Set 1000m above sea level, the site, which is the second largest wind farm in the country, demanded technical precision and logistical finesse.
More than 74km of trenching and 220km of cabling were completed using the MLP system, enabling cables to be laid beneath narrow mountain access roads without impeding wind farm construction traffic.
“With excavators and labourers, you’d be looking at twice the time, I’d imagine, because you’d need to be running three to four excavators plus tip trucks to take material away and bring sand in,” Tesmec Site Manager, Gareth Emeny, said.
“People would have to be in the trench levelling the sand off and placing the cables in the right position. You’re looking at a lot of resources and a lot of money very quickly, and with all the manual handling it creates a lot more risk of injury.”
One of MLP’s biggest strengths lies in how it condenses multiple steps into one.
Using dedicated reel carriers, cable wrappers, trenchers and laying boxes, the system can lay cables in trefoil or flat formation at rates of up to 2500m per day in soft soil, or 400m in hard terrain.
Compared to traditional trenching methods, Tesmec’s system offers:
- up to 40 per cent cost savings, thanks to reduced machinery and labour
- safer worksites, as workers don’t enter open trenches
- improved quality, with GPS-guided placement and uniform backfilling
- lower environmental impact, thanks to narrower trenches and less material transport
In terrain where wind farms and solar projects are often located – hillsides, remote regions, and agricultural land – these advantages can be significant. Projects can stay on track, risks are lowered, and community disruption is minimised.
As more renewable projects get underway across Australia and New Zealand, underground cable installation will continue to be a critical enabler.
Whether it’s connecting turbines to substations or linking solar farms to transmission infrastructure, how quickly and safely these connections are built will influence everything from grid reliability to investor confidence.
Tesmec’s MLP system offers an elegant solution to a messy, costly and risky challenge – delivering not only better results for today’s projects but also setting a higher standard for how infrastructure is delivered in the energy systems of tomorrow.
With proven success across multiple regions, from Australia’s alpine snowfields to the steep slopes of New Zealand’s wind farms, Tesmec is not just laying cables; it’s laying the foundation for a faster, smarter and safer energy future.
For more information, visit tesmec.com.au