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Sustainable Power Cable Materials Technologies with Improved Whole Life Performance

Partners:

National Grid, Dow Chemical Company and University of Southampton.

The TSB project on “Sustainable Power Cable Materials Technologies with Improved Whole Life Performance” seeks to develop a new generation of polymeric power cable materials, which are required to address the growing medium voltage (MV) and high voltage (HV) power utility markets in the UK and the rest of the world. This is driven by replacement of existing aged HVAC systems, new power system connections, especially for renewables (where both HVAC and DC cables may be required) and nuclear generation, and for improvement and further development of the transmission system in England and Wales.

This project seeks to remove current limitations by developing and assessing new materials, evaluating their performance in cable designs and, by developing and applying a whole-life assessment tool, to quantify the whole life benefits.

a cable tunnel

Project Aims

  1. Reduce the direct whole-life environmental impact of next generation cable systems, with total recyclability, zero waste and zero emissions.
  2. Increase whole power system efficiency with enhanced sustainability, particularly under peak load and fault management situations, through flexible AC transmission system (FACTS) operation using cable systems with increased peak-load thermal tolerance.
  3. Increase security of supply in urban and environmentally sensitive areas, where power distribution through underground cabling is the only acceptable option.